The conversations of the members of the General Council of the Judicial Power (CGPJ) in office to negotiate the appointment of the two magistrates of the Constitutional Court that corresponds to them to elect will not begin until next Friday. The conservative sector, which has so far blocked these appointments, has alleged scheduling problems to postpone that first meeting to Friday of this week, sources from the body inform elDiario.es. The appointment will take place, therefore, once the deadline established by law to make these appointments has passed and which expires on Tuesday, September 13. The meeting will be done by videoconference.
The Judiciary postpones sine die the appointment of its two magistrates and leaves the renewal of the Constitutional in the air
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The progressives had requested that this meeting be face-to-face and be held before Friday. The members elected at the proposal of the PP first dropped that they were not available to meet throughout the week. And, finally, at night, they agreed to set that appointment on the last working day of the week and on the condition that it be done electronically. The progressives accepted although they left a written record that their will was to hold a face-to-face meeting. The CGPJ has had its mandate expired since December 2018 due to the PP blocking its renewal.
Last Thursday, the extraordinary plenary session convened to make these appointments ended without an agreement. The members did not even get to discuss possible candidates in a four-hour meeting and limited themselves to setting “procedural rules” on how to appoint candidates. The advisers were summoned to continue negotiating through interlocutors designated by each sector, but without a calendar or prospect of imminently putting names on the table. On the part of the conservative bloc, the interlocutors are the members José Antonio Ballestero and Carmen Llombart, while their counterparts in the progressive wing are Roser Bach, Álvaro Cuesta and Rafael Mozo.
On June 12, the mandate of four of the 12 members of the Constitutional Court expired. These are the two magistrates appointed by the Government and the two appointed by the Judiciary. Of them, currently three correspond to the conservative bloc and one to the progressive. The renewal is decisive because the conservative sector would lose the majority, since three of the four new magistrates would correspond to the progressive wing. They are the two appointed by the Executive, who will be of that ideological profile; and another from the Judiciary.
Since democracy exists, the agreement is that the CGPJ appoints a progressive magistrate and a conservative one for the Constitutional Court. With this renewal, the current majority of six to five in favor of the conservatives in the court of guarantees would turn into another progressive one of seven to four. The Constitutional Court is the court in charge of interpreting the fundamental norm of the State. He will have to rule soon on such sensitive issues as abortion, euthanasia or the reform that prevents the CGPJ from appointing judges with expired mandates, as was happening until March 2021.
The blockade of the imminent renewal of the court of guarantees by the conservative sector of the CGPJ delays the Government’s plans to change the conservative majority for a progressive one in the Constitutional Court, since the Executive has finally decided not to appoint its two magistrates until the governing body of the judges appoint their own. This Monday, the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, asked to let the members work “calmly.” “From the Government we have absolute respect for the members, for their powers. You have to let them work calmly, ”he said.
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