The progressive sector of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) in office makes a move after the failure of the last meeting on the renewal of the Constitutional Court held this Wednesday with the conservative group. Its members have announced in a forceful statement that they will explore “other alternative ways of immediate agreement” to “comply in the shortest possible time” with the appointment of the two magistrates of the court of guarantees who should have been appointed before September 13. This has also been transferred to the president of the CGPJ, Carlos Lesmes, to whom they have reported the “lack of time and concrete horizon of the work” of the negotiating commission created to negotiate these appointments.
Lesmes trusts his resignation to what happens in the “next few days” and stresses that the “urgent” thing is to renew the Judicial Power
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The movement of the progressive sector comes after the meeting this Thursday ended without progress. The eight members of the hard core of the conservative sector, architects of the blockade, told their interlocutors that their “intense search” for profiles to opt for the court of guarantees had been “unsuccessful” so far “up to three times.” And they asked for more time so that the “recent” visit of the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, yields the expected effects. Reynders’ visit to Spain has been the last excuse that these members have made, who also insist on the “repercussion” that these appointments may have in the Supreme Court, where vacancies accumulate.
The appointments of the Constitutional Court must reconcile the support of at least 12 of the 19 current members of the plenary session of the CGPJ. They therefore need the help of members from both sectors of the body, now made up of 10 conservatives, eight progressives and President Lesmes. Of the ten conservatives there are eight constituted in a kind of blocking minority and that during the last weeks they have used different subterfuges to delay the agreement. Any “alternative” path of agreement requires breaking that block and attracting one of its members. Sources from the body affirm that Lesmes has been making efforts in this regard for days, although they have not come to fruition to date.
The progressive minority, which defends that the renewal must be done as soon as possible, has tried to disarm the argument of the absence of candidates by putting on the table the names of up to nine magistrates who have transferred their desire to opt for the Constitutional Court. Although they have not yet revealed the magistrate finally chosen, they have told the other group that they are “in a position” to determine the name finally chosen.
