Texte original publié par No es época para tontos.
The Emili Campos case has moved beyond a dispute between one lawyer and certain judges. It has become a test of the real limits of the right of defence in Andorra. The conflict originates in civil case 2-076/93, concerning an inheritance valued in 2002 at €6,082,500 and which, after years of litigation, ended with Campos’s client being recognised rights worth only €4,000. Faced with that discrepancy, in July 2025 Campos filed an application for review and, in his procedural submissions, raised hypotheses of possible judicial prevarication, bribery and fraudulent manoeuvring.
The decisive issue is not whether those accusations are already proven. They are not. The question is whether a lawyer may raise them, on a factual basis and within judicial proceedings, without the institutional response being to turn the lawyer himself into the subject of criminal proceedings. Campos also sought recusals and constitutional protection. On 2 December 2025, Constitutional Court president Joan Manel Abril Campoy sent a communication to the Batllia and the prosecution service concerning the language used by the lawyer. Months later, Campos would be summoned as an accused person over alleged offences connected with calumny and the prestige of institutions.
That is where the central contradiction appears. The Andorran Constitution protects the right to defence, due process, an impartial tribunal and freedom of expression. A lawyer is not an employee of the judge: his role is precisely to challenge decisions, identify anomalies and place before a court legal hypotheses that may be uncomfortable. The criminal-law dimension is even more sensitive. Calumny and defamation are not established merely because a serious accusation has been made; they require elements such as knowing falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. The offence concerning the prestige of institutions also raises the issue of publicity. If Campos’s statements were contained in procedural documents addressed to courts, it is legitimate to ask whether they can be treated as equivalent to a public accusation.
The European mirror makes the problem more acute. The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly protected lawyers’ freedom of expression where statements are connected with the defence of a client. Nikula v. Finland protected extremely harsh criticism of a prosecutor. Bono v. France went much further: a lawyer accused investigating judges of complicity in torture, yet Strasbourg held that statements connected to the defence and supported by a factual basis fell within protected professional expression. Morice v. France stresses that impartiality must not only exist but must also be seen to exist. That chilling effect may be the most serious aspect of the Campos case. If an Andorran lawyer sees that raising a hypothesis of judicial wrongdoing can result in being summoned as an accused person, the next lawyer may decide not to raise such a hypothesis even when he believes there is sufficient factual support. An entire profession does not need to be prosecuted. One emblematic case can be enough to send the message that certain lines of defence carry a personal cost.
The international contradiction is equally uncomfortable. On 13 May 2025, Andorra signed the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of the Profession of Lawyer, which sets a European standard protecting statements made in good faith in the course of representing a client. This is not presented here as automatically applicable domestic law in the Campos case. But politically the question is unavoidable: how can a state sign a European instrument designed to protect lawyers and then, shortly afterwards, have to explain why one of its own lawyers is being criminally investigated for language used in judicial submissions? The wider institutional context does not make the issue disappear.
GRECO has raised concerns about aspects of Andorran judicial governance, while the Constitutional Court has acknowledged violations caused by excessive judicial delays. Campos himself previously obtained constitutional relief in proceedings that had accumulated fifteen years of delay. None of this proves corruption in the present case. It does, however, make it impossible to dismiss every structural criticism of the Andorran justice system as fantasy.
The final issue therefore goes far beyond Emili Campos. In a democracy, a lawyer who makes a serious allegation can be required to provide facts and legal grounds. That is normal. But if the answer to a procedural allegation is to use criminal law against the lawyer who raised it, the debate is no longer about one troublesome advocate. It becomes a debate about the freedom of the entire Andorran legal profession. Institutional prestige cannot become institutional immunity. A strong justice system does not prove its authority by silencing criticism; it proves it by answering criticism with evidence, reasoning, transparency and procedural guarantees.
