The General Council of the Judiciary has gone from speaking on the “subway and the bus” on a daily basis – as the Minister of Justice said, Pilar Llop– to the fact that this Wednesday it was difficult to find someone who mentioned it in the plenary session of Congress, although it was in the huddles of the leaders with the journalists. The four acronyms of CGPJ They have only spoken once in the government control session, despite the fact that they promised to be the star issue after the PP broke off negotiations to renew this institution last Thursday. In its place, the name of Carles Puigdemont and Conservative MPs have asked half a dozen ministers who is the “mr X” who has supposedly traveled to Brussels to negotiate with the ‘ex-president’ the reform of the crime of sedition. The government’s strategy has been to avoid questions and accusations.
After more than two hours of debate in the lower house, no one would say that the renewal of the CGPJ is still at the center of all political conversations. In interviews in the media and in huddles, without cameras, it has been talked about. In the hemicycle, on the other hand, the Executive and also the PP have avoided it.
Revealing has been the first face to face of the morning, between the PP spokesperson, Cuca Gamarraand the chief executive, Pedro Sanchez. Neither of them has touched the matter. The conservative leader has not reminded him that they considered the negotiations broken due to the Government’s intention to reform sedition and the leader of the PSOE has not blamed him for blowing up some talks that, everything pointed to, were going to bear fruit after almost four of the expired CGPJ. He alone has demanded that he “comply with the Constitution”, but without explicit mention of the matter in question.
A letter and secret visits
“By the way, Who is that new Mr. X from the PSOE who went to see Puigdemont? Who has gone to negotiate the Penal Code tailored to the coup leaders? Who has offered that the laws in Spain be drafted at the ERC headquarters? Whoever it was, he did it following his orders,” Gamarra snapped at Sánchez, wielding a letter that the ‘ex-president’ published on social networks this week. However, there has been a change of discourse in the ranks of the PP. Last Monday, the general secretary of the party, Elijah Bendodo, armed himself with the words of Puigdemont to defend the breakdown of the CGPJ negotiation. This time, Gamarra has not made that link.
Specifically, Puigdemont published a message on his social networks on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his departure from Spain. The former president assures that “PSOE people” has visited him on several occasions in Belgium to generate “expectations of good treatment, via reform of the Penal Code, and a pardon. As long as, of course, he agreed to appear before the Supreme Court.”I’m sure Pedro Sánchez knows what I’m talking about“, he underlines in the letter.
Avui fa cinc anys que arribàvem a l’exili. I have written a text about it, watching enrere i watching endavant. You can get it in these screenshots or you can download it in this link:https://t.co/TuCLBMbusK pic.twitter.com/bQu58NJ47w
— krls.eth / Carles Puigdemont (@KRLS) October 30, 2022
And the PP, wanting to move the focus away from the decision (questioned inside and outside the party) to break off the CGPJ negotiations, has focused on finding that supposed “Mr. X” (recovering the name given to the founder of the LAG during the government of Philip Gonzalez) who has come to visit the former president. “Were you in charge of negotiating in Waterloo with a fugitive from Justice? If it wasn’t you, do you know who was from your government?”the deputy of the PP Carlos Rojas has questioned the first vice president, Nadia Calvino. And in the same way the questions have been happening, shoehorned into issues that had nothing to do with the third vice president, Theresa Riverato the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the Minister of Education, Pillar Joy. None have entered the rag. Nor have they been reproached for the situation of the CGPJ.
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We had to wait until after 10:30 in the morning – the plenary session starts at 9 – to hear any reference to the General Council of the Judiciary in the chamber. He has been the Minister of the Presidency, Felix Bolanos, who has recalled that the PSOE, in 2013 when Mariano Rajoy governed, renewed this body. Next, he has underlined that Feijóo’s decision leaves his leadership “touched, probably sunk” and has accused him of aggravating “an institutional crisis.” Curiously, she has been in a reply to a question from Vox.
internal pressure
That silence has been broken by the spokesman for United We Can in Congress, Paul Echeniquewho has denounced the “umpteenth break with excuses by the PP“The purple ones, who had been publicly complaining about the negotiation that was taking place between the PSOE and the PP to renew the CGPJ, have taken the opportunity to pressure their partners in the coalition government, ensuring that there are only two options: “allow the soft blow to the democracy of the PP to be consumed” either “change majorities” to elect the members of the governing body of the judges. Both formations presented a joint bill for this purpose that they ended up withdrawing.