Strasbourg rebukes Spain for keeping the renewal of the CGPJ blocked

European Justice, through the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has failed in favor of the six magistrates of the Association of Judges Francisco de Vitoria (AFJV) who aspired to be members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), at the same time that it has recognized their rights to participate in a timely manner in the renewal of the governing body of judges.

Strasbourg has concluded that he European Convention does not guarantee the right to “be named” or being “promoted” to a member of a position within the civil service, but who does guarantee the right to legal process for the timely examination of their candidacies.

“What was at stake in the process presented by the applicants it was not their right to become a GCJ member, but their right to a legal proceeding for the opportune examination of their candidacies”, the court pointed out.

In this sense, the court has established that the AJFV candidates they had the right to participate in the procedure to be elected a member of the CGPJ and that their candidacies were examined by the Chambers in a “timely” manner.

Demand for six magistrates in 2021

The ECtHR has thus answered the lawsuit filed in October 2021 by six magistrates of the Association of Judges Francisco de Vitoria (AFJV) to denounce the blockade in the renewal of the CGPJ due to the inactivity of Congress and the Senate.

The six who filed the lawsuit are members of the AJFV who were endorsed by the judicial association in 2018 as candidates to be part of the CGPJ. For this reason, they argued before Strasbourg that are “direct victims of the infringement of their right access to public office and effective judicial protection”, which in his opinion represents a violation of article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The association’s national spokesman, Jorge Fernández Vaquero, explained when the lawsuit was filed that the renewal of the CGPJ was the “sole and exclusive” competence of both chambersdenouncing that they had done “nothing” in three years because they were “subject” to the interests of the PP and PSOE.

They went to the European Court

In addition, from the association they indicated that they went to the ECHR because the Constitutional Court (TC) did not admit the appeal for processing of amparo presented by those six magistrates “without going into its content”.