in his book Unreliable Sources (1988), or insolvent sources, the North American experts Martin Lee Y Norman Solomonn, after pointing out that “the most sacred cow of the press is the press itself”, they describe among the vices of the media in their country what they call “the source journalism“, or the dependence, sometimes unhealthy, of journalists on certain of their sources. In Spain it is a daily practice.
That dependency often turns into the need to be grateful is not less frequent. If they give you, for example, a full judgment of the constitutional Court (TC) when the dissenting magistrates have not yet presented their individual vote and you display the scoop in four columns on the front page, it seems that later you have to recognize it when it comes to addressing other information for what “it is well-born to be grateful for.”
Pedro Gonzalez-Trevijano he will be forced to leave the presidency of the TC at some point, perhaps sooner rather than later, it will be seen. His term expired on June 12, 2022, and he was elected by the Government of Mariano Rajoy in June 2013, and its automatic extension will take seven months on January 12. That what is called in these pages the media-judicial union has “tightened” and later, these days, praised, González-Trevijano, after the announced coup was consummated, first to protect the Congress of Deputies and later the Senate , in order to prohibit the conversion into law of the final provisions to avoid blocking the renewal of the TC, was something foreseeable.
But that a self-proclaimed independent press present it, after one of the most factious events in Spanish constitutional history since 1978 -the admission of the “preventive” amparo appeal of the Popular Party against these provisions – as the man who came to the presidency to “heal the wounds” and who, poor him, did not succeed, is the living example of that “source journalism” that Lee and Solomon speak of in a work that marked an era in American journalism.
Vox appeal to the state of alarm
Pedro González-Trevijano prepared his accession to the presidency of the Constitutional Court, which corresponded to the group of conservative magistrates of his tercio, with a presentation on the resource far-right party vox against law of the state of alarm and confinement decreed by the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
Let’s situate ourselves. It is September 2020, the members of the TC receive the draft on what would be the presentation on the appeal of unconstitutionality of the magistrate whose turn it had been to prepare it. It was about Fernando Valdes Dal Refrom the progressive sector. The draft of it, written on the basis of the work of the lawyer Javier Jiménez Campos, professor of constitutional law and former secretary general of the TC, dismissed Vox’s appeal. A complaint against Valdés’ mistreatment of his wife – which she has denied – sets him apart first, culminating in his resignation from the TC and the subsequent filing of the proceedings against him in the Supreme Court.
To all this, his presentation falls on González-Trevijano, who relies on the work of another professor of Constitutional Law, Angel Sanchez Navarror, to whom he himself has recommended incorporating him as a lawyer on a temporary secondment regime in the TC. He has been a vocal adviser in the Department of Parliament and Institutions of the cabinet of the President of the Government Jose Maria Aznar, between 2000 and 2002. Sánchez Navarro, then, replaces Jiménez Campos. And the new presentation prepared on the technical report by Sánchez Navarro maintains that although the confinement measures and the restrictions on leisure and commercial activity have been necessary, in line with the instructions of the World Health Organization (WHO)home confinement, decreed by the Government and approved by Congress, is unconstitutional because the fundamental right of free movement -not simply limited- and for this the Exception status.
Transparency
Both the beginning of the debate and the end, after the vote, register a conduct incompatible with the rules of transparency and, it must be said, decency. On Tuesday, June 8, 2021. The president of the Constitutional Court, Juan Jose Gonzalez Rivasorders each magistrate to deliver a copy of González-Trevijano’s presentation on Vox’s appeal against the state of alarm decree approved by the Government in March 2020 and, subsequently, by an absolute majority of Congress, including Vox and the Popular Party.
The instructions for Tuesday June 8 are strict. Leaks must be avoided. The copy does not go through the secretariat or is sent to emails. On Thursday, June 10, first thing in the morning, a digital newspaper publishes the content. The paper proposes declaring home confinement enshrined by the state of alarm unconstitutional (article 7 of the decree).
The deliberate leak of González-Trevijano’s presentation, in favor of declaring a key article of the decree law – number 7, or home confinement – unconstitutional, expressed the intention of the conservative majority to embrace a strategy of “here I catch you, here you I kill”. impose the roller. The fait accompli. So the conservative majority is overwhelming: 8 votes against 3 (Valdés had not been replaced).
And it is not difficult to consummate the operation. And just as González-Trevijano’s presentation is leaked to a digital newspaper close to the media-judicial union before being debated in a media outlet, the full sentence will be, on June 16, 2022, in another media outlet, trending differently, before the dissenting magistrates have delivered their signed individual vote.
González-Trevijano is a tightrope walker.
Other setbacks
This great “varapalo”, defined in this way by the media of the media-police union, the monthly plenary sessions in which the TC admitted the unconstitutionality appeals of Vox and the PP against the Government, were followed by others, such as, logically, that of the extension of the first state of alarm or the declaration of nullity of the agreement reached by the Board of the Congress of Deputies on March 19, 2020, which suspended the regulatory deadlines for the initiatives that were in process, as well as the agreement of the April 21, which dismissed Vox’s request to reconsider the aforementioned decision.
That is to say: the TC, which had acted in a similar way, now dealt a new “blow” to the Government through a kick against the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet.
The president of the CT, Juan Jose Gonzalez Rivasmagistrate of the conservative sector, is an exception witness of the deliberate polarization of the right. In his individual votes against the opinion of the majority, he pronounces himself in favor of the constitutionality of the state of alarm. And it triggers the pressure of the media-judicial union in favor of a “combat” TC, because, according to what he affirms, González Rivas yields to the influence of the magistrate, Galician like that one, Cándido Conde-Pumpido.
As of November, with the appointment of four new magistrates and, later, with the resignation due to illness of Alfredo Montoya, a conservative magistrate, the internal situation in the TC changes: there are now 6 conservatives and 5 progressives.
We are already in June 2022. The division of labor between the conservative members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and the magistrates of the same string of the TC -some and others supported by the PP of Feijóo- works to the letter.
Related news
González-Trevijano, eight months after taking office, reiterates to the Government, through various messengers, that it does not occur to him to appoint the 2 magistrates that correspond to him to replace him and Antonio Narváez, also appointed by the Rajoy Government, because will take advantage of the conservative majority of 6 to 5 to block their inauguration. He also tells the Minister of Justice in person, Pilar Llop.
The end -the coup against Congress and Senate– has been the chronicle of an announced coup. González-Trevijano has gone so far as to intervene and vote in the very inadmissibility of his challenge, something that should not remain as a footnote in the history of the TC. All in all, his mission has not ended. The icing on the cake is his commitment -and that of Enrique Analdo- with the objective of the PP and the right to frustrate the possible progressive presidency of Conde-Pumpido in the TC, through a candidacy alternative of the magistrate of the progressive sector Maria Luis Balaguer. In that they are.