The Popular Party remains willing to prolong the blockade of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which has submerged the most important institution of the third power of the State in a situation of unprecedented paralysis in democracy. After more than four years of growing and changing excuses and only two months after unilaterally breaking off the last negotiation when it was about to end, the formation of Alberto Núñez Feijóo hardens its conditions once again by recovering the demand that the 12 judicial members of the CGPJ They are chosen directly by the judges.
PSOE and PP agreed that judges who enter politics could not return to Justice until two years after leaving office
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This is stated in a bill that the parliamentary group presented on December 30 in Congress and that also includes some of the points of the pact reached in October with the PSOE and that the PP dynamited at the last moment. The novelty is that this text, known this Tuesday, contains the proposal to change the method of choosing the members of the CGPJ so that the judges choose 12 of the 20, those who belong to the judicial career. And that means a return to an approach of maximums that the PP had renounced in its last negotiation with the Government and that Feijóo broke in the face of internal criticism and the most conservative media terminals.
The full text of the agreement reached then by the Executive and the main opposition party has not been disclosed. But Esteban González Pons, the PP’s main negotiator in judicial matters, acknowledged after the breakdown of the talks that his will was to “confirm that the CGPJ had to issue an opinion so that judges and magistrates choose their members.” In other words, he left the preparation of a non-binding report on that reform in the hands of the renewed body. And he supposed, therefore, that the PP was willing to approach the renewal with the current rules of the game.
In the current system, the 12 judicial members are elected by a majority of three fifths of Congress and the Senate from a list determined by the judges themselves. To enter this list it is necessary to have the endorsement of 25 judges or a judicial association and each judge and each association can endorse 12 judges. The appointment of the other eight legal members does depend solely on the Chambers. With this movement, Genoa seeks to portray the PSOE in the refusal to allow the judicial career itself to choose its representatives in the CGPJ through a bill that is in the terms that it had renounced in the last negotiation with Moncloa.
In the PSOE they consider that the text that the PP has sent to Congress “is nothing new.” “It is one of the excuses that they include in their catalog for not renewing the CGPJ,” they say in the socialist leadership. From Moncloa, they also called on Feijóo to recover the agreement they reached before the PP leader blew up the talks. “The bill that was agreed upon is ready to be signed when the PP wants and overcomes the trembling legs,” say government sources.
The fundamental premise of those of Sánchez is that the renewal of the CGPJ, which has been in office for more than four years, must take place before any hypothetical change in the election system. “It is Europe that says that the CGPJ must first be renewed,” they recall in Ferraz. From there, the Executive is willing to resume negotiations in the agreement consisting of three documents that only lacked small details to polish: one where the agreement reached with the PP was explained; another that contained the bill to amend the Organic Law of the Judiciary and the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor with the intention of preventing revolving doors in Justice; and the third with the list of the 20 members and the 12 substitutes of the new CGPJ.
Casado’s failed initiatives
The current formula for parliamentary election was ratified in a pact signed in 2001 between the PP and the PSOE during the second legislature of José María Aznar. The conservatives did not propose this legal change either in their two absolute majorities. Feijóo now recovers a change in the system of designation of the members that his predecessor in the position, Pablo Casado, promoted in Congress up to two times, although those initiatives were knocked down by the plenary session of Congress by a large majority.
The first time was in 2018, after the publication of a message from the then PP spokesman in the Senate, Juan Ignacio Cosidó, boasting of controlling “from behind” [con el nombramiento de Manuel Marchena] the most delicate chamber of the Supreme Court frustrated the first attempt to renew the current CGPJ, which had been proposed without touching the system of election of the members. Only when the agreement was blown up did the PP change its criteria and proposed ending the parliamentary election of judicial members. He did it by introducing in extremis an amendment in a broader judicial reform promoted by Ciudadanos. But both parties were left alone and the initiative was rejected in December of that year by 176 votes.
Married tried again months later. In October 2020 presented a reform broader judicial system that included the direct election by the judges of the 12 judicial members, but also other measures such as modifying the system of majorities for judicial appointments or preventing anyone who had held a political office from being appointed State Attorney General. the previous ten years. The majority of the Lower House – with 154 yeses and 190 noes – knocked down that initiative in September 2021. The PP only achieved the support of Vox and Ciudadanos.
The system of direct election by the judges of the 12 judicial members that the PP demands again is the one that was in force until 1985. With these rules of the game, the candidacy of the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM) — which was the only one constituted up to that moment in the judicial sphere— won the elections to the CGPJ in 1980 and took over all those positions despite the fact that there were open lists. In addition to the APM, the Independent Judicial Candidacy and the Independent Candidacy of Labor Magistrates were presented, according to The country.
The parliamentary election of the members of the CGPJ was established in 1985, when Felipe González’s PSOE governed with an absolute majority. The conservative composition of the judicial career and the will of the Socialists for the parliamentary majority to have a certain reflection in the judicial structure weighed in this decision. It is the model defended by the Government of Pedro Sánchez, understanding that it “guarantees that the powers of the State emanate from the citizenry” while respecting the participation of the judges, who collaborate in the pre-selection.
The scandal that meant in December that the conservative majority of the Constitutional Court stopped for the first time in history the processing of a legal reform in Parliament – precisely, the one presented by the government parties, which contained an amendment to renew the court – exemplifies how The fact that the appointments and decisions are made by judges is not a full guarantee of independence and impartiality.
The associations of judges do not agree on how to choose the judicial members of the Judiciary either. The majority and conservative APM defends the direct appointment by the judges “without restrictions”, while the moderate Francisco de Vitoria and Foro Judicial include nuances to the corporate election to include “minorities”. Only the progressive Judges for Democracy supports the current model.
The battle of the story in 2023
As soon as 2023 began, the Government and the main opposition party have made it clear that their positions are as far apart as at the end of the previous year, although both Sánchez and Feijóo want to keep the debate on the Judiciary alive. PSOE and Unidas Podemos have for now postponed the registration of the proposed law agreed with the parliamentary majority – and which the Constitutional overturned – with which they intended to force its renewal. “It is not a priority,” they acknowledge in the socialist leadership once the governing body of judges appointed their two candidates.
However, the sources consulted do not rule out promoting any initiative, understanding that “a reflection is necessary on what to do when one of the two great parties that uphold the spirit of 78 turns against the system and it is left completely unprotected.” “Right now the PP is in a position of non-compliance with the Constitution that, not because it is repeated, is no longer incomprehensible in a party that called itself a state party,” they add.
The consequence of this blockade is that the CGPJ is fully immersed in its fifth year of expired mandate in an absolutely precarious situation: with a president “by substitution” elected after the resignation of Carlos Lesmes, a plenary session reduced (with 18 of its 21 original members) and also limited attributions. Since March 2021, he has been prohibited from exercising his main function: making appointments to the judicial leadership, which has led to a threat of collapse in the Supreme Court because vacancies cannot be filled.
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