Text original publicat per No es época para tontos.
How independent can a justice system truly appear when the heads of state themselves participate directly in appointing those who govern the judiciary and sit on the Constitutional Court? This investigation examines Andorran justice not as a collection of isolated delays or individual controversies, but as a structural problem involving appointments, transparency, foreign magistrates, conflicts of interest, recusals and constitutional immunity.
At the centre are Andorra’s two Co-Princes: the Bishop of Urgell and the President of the French Republic. Each appoints one member of the Consell Superior de la Justícia, the body that governs the judiciary, appoints magistrates and exercises disciplinary authority. Each also appoints one of the four members of the Constitutional Court. The paradox is clear: the Co-Princes do not decide individual cases and enjoy broad constitutional immunity, yet they retain direct structural influence over institutions that govern and review justice.
The episode asks whether the distinction between legal immunity and institutional responsibility has gone too far. If the Co-Princes help shape the judicial architecture, what responsibility do they bear when that architecture is perceived as opaque, fragile or insufficiently independent?
The investigation also examines Andorra’s reliance on foreign magistrates, particularly professionals with links to Girona. Fàtima Ramírez Souto, Carles Cruz Moratones, Víctor Correas Sitjes and Hugo Novales Bilbao are analysed as part of a broader transparency problem. Their presence does not prove a coordinated network, and this programme does not claim one exists. The question is whether previous professional relationships, prior controversies, recusals, abstentions and potential conflicts are scrutinised and disclosed with enough rigour in such a small judicial ecosystem.
Particular attention is given to Hugo Novales Bilbao and his documented confrontation in Girona with Josep Guirao. Guirao is not a judge; he is, among other activities, an investigative journalist who scrutinises institutions and Andorran justice. When Novales was dean of the judges in Girona, Guirao directly sued him following disputes over judicial administration and decisions he challenged. The programme does not turn those allegations into established judicial facts. It asks a present-day question: what safeguards of objective impartiality, abstention and recusal should exist when a magistrate later serves in Andorra while a journalist with whom he previously had direct litigation is actively investigating that same justice system?
Fàtima Ramírez Souto is examined as another structural example. Her judicial activity in both Girona and Andorra had formal authorisation, but legality does not automatically resolve questions about workload, professional ties, conflicts of interest, recusals or the appearance of independence across two closely connected jurisdictions.
The investigation then reaches its most controversial section: Casa Molines. It reconstructs the inheritance of Maria Dolors Maestre, the role of the Bishopric of Urgell, disputes surrounding the executors and later litigation that reached the Constitutional Court. It examines the fact that Josep-Delfí Guàrdia, appointed to the Constitutional Court by the Episcopal Co-Prince Joan-Enric Vives, participated in litigation connected to a dispute arising from administration of the Casa Molines inheritance. It does not claim that Guàrdia ruled on the validity of the inheritance itself or that corruption was judicially established. The central issue is institutional proximity and appearance of conflict when the appointing authority is simultaneously linked, through the Bishopric, to an inheritance whose administration generates litigation reaching that same court.
The programme connects these issues with GRECO’s concerns about judicial governance, transparency and safeguards against conflicts of interest. It asks whether an institutional model designed to preserve sovereignty can still satisfy modern European expectations of independence, accountability and traceability.
The conclusion is demanding. The current Co-Princes did not create every problem inherited from previous decades. But occupying the office means inheriting its constitutional powers and its moral obligations. Their responsibility should not be to shield the justice system from criticism, but to strengthen its credibility through transparent appointments, stronger incompatibility rules, public conflict-of-interest safeguards, publication of recusals and abstentions, and genuine institutional traceability.
This is not an accusation that every controversial ruling is corrupt. It is a deeper investigation into architecture, legitimacy and accountability.
If the Co-Princes help shape Andorran justice, what responsibility do they bear when confidence in that justice begins to fracture — and what are they prepared to do to repair it?
