In a 13-page “king on Christmas Eve” speech, where there are phrases for all tastes within a clear inclination to starboard, the outgoing president of the Constitutional Court, Pedro Gonzalez-Trevijanohinted at the possible consensus between the conservative and progressive sectors at a time when the acting president, Ricardo Enriquezhas convened for this Wednesday, January 11, the Plenary to elect the magistrates who will occupy the presidency and vice-presidency.
He pointed out, when citing a 2006 ruling of the TC, that it is normal for “a magistrate of the constitutional Court has been appointed precisely because of his ideas and opinions expressed through the usual instruments of legal dissemination, which make up his professional career…& rdquor;.
And he emphasized: “For this very reason, I do not share the false dichotomy between” conservative & rdquor; and “progressives”, as well as the claims of impossible unanimity, otherwise non-existent in other areas of society, and which are never an end in themselves. There are no partial judgments of the majority either. There are, without further ado, sentences, although we all long for his greatest possible support & rdquor ;.
González-Trevijano, precisely, and his colleague Enrique Arnaldohave worked in recent months to prevent the progressive sector from being able to move forward with their exclusive votes (6 or 7 if the magistrate is included or not Maria Luisa Segoviano) a progressive candidate without the need for conservative votes (4 or 5 if Segoviano is included or not).
In these efforts, the sympathy of the magistrate attached to the progressive sector has coincided Maria Luisa Balaguer willing to jump to a presidency supported by the four or five conservative votes and her own, which would leave the progressive sector in 6 votes against 5.
This sector was oriented yesterday, according to court sources consulted by El Periódico de Catalunya, to appoint a single candidate, in the perspective of doing without the conservative magistrates. And that is the candidacy of magistrate Cándido Conde-Pumpido. It would therefore be the first progressive presidency after nine years (since 2013) and seven months of deliberate blockade (since June 12, 2022) to stop Judge Segoviano’s change of majority vote, since she is the one who will incline to one side or the other the balance.
The outgoing president, therefore, does not now see a line or a border between conservatives and progressives. But when he makes public statements, he maintains something else: “We lawyers are almost all conservative people, because Law is a conservative science & rdquor ;, he explained to the newspaper ‘El País’, at the beginning of last September. If anything, he goes online, as he explained Enrique Lopezjudge on leave and Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Interior of the Community of Madrid, in the sense that “the PP has the support of the majority of the judicial career& rdquor ;.
González-Trevijano made a ‘name dropping’ speech, which in English is equivalent to citing proper names. The long list: Isaiah Berlin, Kelsen, Beethoven, Aristotle, Virgilio Zapatero, Bergson Juan Genovés, Jorge de Esteban, Jefferson, Stravinsky Montesquieu, Häberle, Peces Barba, Manuel Aragón, Luis María Cazorla, Ulpiano, Carl Schmitt, Garcia Pelayo, Saavedra Fajardo, Fernando de los Ríos, Encarna Roca, Homero, Goethe, Jean Monnet, Cruz Villalón, Tennyson and Chesterton (and allusions to Dante, Hegel or Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Montaigne).
But his messages were clear.
In relation to the matter of what the magistrates of the TC are and what they should be, he pointed out: “It is not idle to remember that the appointment procedure does not imply a representation mechanism. The magistrate does not represent anyone. Neither to the body by which he was elected, nor to the parliamentary force that promoted his proposal. He is alone with his conscience and depends only on it. The absence of spurious ties and his indeclinable independence are requirements of his legitimacy of origin and exercise & rdquor ;.
He defended the “presumption of constitutionality & rdquor; of the legislative action, but celebrated the admission of the very precautionary measures of the Popular Party to paralyze the legislation aimed at unblocking the TC.
If it is already out of the ordinary for an order on very precautionary measures to take sides at the bottom of a matter to be elucidated – the renewal by sixths is unconstitutional, maintains the resolution -, it is no less striking that yesterday it proclaimed: “The reason that brings us together Today here is not a farewell. On the contrary, we celebrate continuity, in line with its renewal by thirds, as expressly mandated by article 159.3 of the Constitution & rdquor;
The former president’s clarifications on the consensus between progressives and conservatives refer to the issue that is rarely charged with uncertainty: who will occupy the presidency?
And this is so because of the tortuous process that the election of the two magistrates of the General Council of the Judiciary has undergone and the role of Maria Luisa Segoviano in the path.
The progressive sector includes her in its first list of five magistrates along with another conservative magistrate, Rafael Fernández-Valverde, and three others considered progressive. Why? They wanted to show that the argument used by the right that there were no Supreme Court magistrates interested in the position was false.
So, María Luisa Segoviano went to bed the night before her appointment, from December 26 to 27, as a magistrate close to the conservative sector, and got up the next day as close to the progressive sector.
The conservatives were wrong to think that the progressive sector would reject Segoviano because, as they had already planted, they wanted the magistrate Jose Manuel Bandres. The progressive sector preferred Segoviano given the possibility of prolonging the blockade -according to the order of the most precautionary- of the TC for another year, until the general elections.
But, according to the TC sources consulted, the progressive sector upset the conservatives with the first derivative, but without having resolved the second derivative: guaranteeing the presidency for Count-Pumpido.
Only she knows what María Luisa Segoviano will do. Today at the meeting of the progressive group, in which they have her, it will be possible to move towards her decision. She has spoken of qualities to chair such as consensus, the spirit of dialogue and empathy.
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The million dollar question: have you reached the TC with a position already adopted? have you proposed Jose Maria Maciasthe leader of the conservative sector of the CGPJ, without telling him that he should vote against Conde-Pumpido as, according to reliable sources, he previously told magistrate Pablo Lucas, who withdrew from participating?
Or is it not necessary to say what one can intuit oneself?