The acting Judiciary aggravates its “institutional discredit” due to the clash between its members

The blockade to which the CGPJ has been subjected since 2018 is a consequence of the partisan calculations of the Popular Party, whose leaders are willing to extend this situation until the end of the legislature after blowing up at the last moment the most recent agreement attempt last October. The body has already served more than four years in office in an absolutely precarious situation: with a president “by replacement” who has his duties assessed, a reduced plenary session (with 18 of its 21 original members) and also limited powers. Mainly, its essential function of making appointments in the judicial leadership, which has led to a threat of collapse in the Supreme Court because vacancies cannot be filled.

With the aim of addressing this situation, the plenary held an extraordinary monographic session on February 9. An appointment that revealed the inability of the members to reach any agreement. 14 of the 18 members showed their willingness to carry out an initiative that would show the effects of the paralysis, but there was no agreement on what or how. The 11 members who do not have full dedication receive 975 euros for each plenary session they attend. The rest have an annual salary that exceeds 120,000 euros. The usual thing is that there is an ordinary plenary session per month, to which are added the extraordinary ones agreed by the president or requested by at least five members.

The Permanent Commission —the hard core of the institution, made up of four conservatives and three progressives— proposed to urge Congress and the Senate to renew the institution and, if it does not occur, demand the modification of the law of the Judiciary so that the “attribution” to make appointments be returned to them. His text also insisted that this reform is generating “very serious damage” to the judicial protection of citizens. This legal change was promoted by the government partners to force the renewal of the CGPJ and was appealed by the PP and Vox before the Constitutional Court.

The Permanente’s proposal echoed a report in which the Governing Chamber of the Supreme Court urged Parliament to put an “immediate” “remedy” to an “unsustainable” situation, although judges did not make concrete proposals and limited themselves to to ask for “initiatives” that would prevent this scenario from worsening. The hard core of the CGPJ did go further and said, among other things, that it was not “coherent” that the law had been changed to renew the Constitutional and that the same was not done with the “remaining appointments.”

That initiative only received seven votes (four progressives and three conservatives). The other eleven members voted against, including the conservative José Antonio Ballestero Pascual, who is part of that reduced body. Four of those who supported it —the conservatives Juan Manuel Fernández, Juan Martínez Moya and Nuria Díaz and the progressive Álvaro Cuesta— tried to defend it in a private vote in which they valued its “spirit of consensus” and made the plenary ugly for not having given its support for a “necessary” agreement in the face of “an extremely serious situation.”

Among those who rejected it, there are members who considered it “unacceptable” on the understanding that it would lead to a scenario of confrontation with other State powers. Especially with the Legislature. “It is outrageous for the Council to address Parliament to tell it what to do. An excess ”, says a vocal.

“Complacent attitude”

Other directors, however, described it as “useless”, “disappointing” and “insufficient”. This is what the conservatives Carmen Llombart, José Antonio Ballestero, Gerardo Martinez Tristán, José María Macías and María Ángeles Carmona, who tend to have very critical positions with the Government, expressed in a particular vote. In their letter, they accused their Permanente comrades of adopting a “complacent attitude” that “plays along” with those who “undermine the foundations of the rule of law,” alluding to the parties that promoted and approved the reform that prevents the CGPJ make appointments in the judicial leadership when it is in office.

These last members had supported the second of the proposals that was put to the vote, signed by Enrique Lucas (elected at the proposal of the PNV) and Gerardo Martínez Tristán (appointed by the PP). It was also rejected with seven votes in favor and eleven against. His text coincided with that of the Permanent in requesting the renewal or return of powers. But, in the meantime, he asked the Chambers to empower the CGPJ to make the appointments that make it possible to cover, at the Supreme Court’s proposal, the “minimum” of vacancies necessary to guarantee the “normal operation” of its different Chambers.

“I thought it was necessary to accentuate the institutional sense and move away from any term or mention of the origin and worsening of the existing situation that would lend itself to interpretations of a political nature, a risk that I saw in some paragraphs of the proposal of the Permanent Commission. For this reason, my proposal tried to be as objective and aseptic as possible, ”wrote Enrique Lucas, who is usually placed in the progressive sector, in another private vote.

In that same writing he refers to the plenary session as a “fiasco” and to the situation generated as a “disaster”. He also does not hide his regret for the difficulty in forging agreements, which, in his opinion, sharpens the “institutional discredit” of the body. “It is very difficult to understand that existing as it existed, such a great coincidence in fundamentals, we were not capable of agreeing on a common text in which we would all have to have given up something”, collects his particular vote.

The fourth of the individual votes is signed by the vocal Concepción Sáez, elected at the proposal of Izquierda Unida. Sáez did not support either of the two proposals: she voted against the Permanent text and blank for the so-called alternative text. In her letter, she affirms that the request to Parliament for an urgent modification of the article of the law that prevents the CGPJ from making appointments is “an unacceptable interference in the constitutional powers of another State power.”

The member is especially critical of the writing of the Permanent: she questions that it equates the cause (the non-renewal within the term of the CGPJ), with the effects (the law that prevents her from naming and its consequences) and considers it “unacceptable” that she qualifies as ” ineffective” that reform. In Sáez’s opinion, what happened in that plenary session is “another example of the profound deterioration” of the body. A situation for which he blames “those who in a systematic, organized and prolonged way have been preventing its renewal for more than four years.”

15 new lawyers

Given this scenario, the Permanente agreed this Thursday to send to Congress and the Senate the aforementioned report in which the Governing Chamber of the Supreme Court warns of the “critical situation” of some of its chambers. But without allusions to the law that prevents him from making appointments or the need for renewal.

It also approved asking the Ministry of Justice for reinforcing measures that can help alleviate the situation of the High Court. Specifically, the creation of 15 legal positions in the Supreme Court. The objective is to strengthen the body that assists judges in the admission of cases and collaborates with the studies and reports that are requested. This Friday, a spokesman for the ministry refused to rule on that request on the grounds that it had not yet been received through the official channel. According to the department headed by Pilar Llop, since 2021, 1.3 million euros have been invested in reinforcing the Supreme Court. Mainly, due to the incorporation of lawyers to the technical office.