Within a maximum period of one week we will know if Spain avoids the monumental ridicule of having two of its main constitutional bodies expired pending renewal. Pedro Sánchez gave a blow this Monday after the resignation of Carlos Lesmes to the presidency of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). One day we will know why it has taken him so long to see the obvious, that the situation of the institution he presided over was unsustainable, but for four years, not four days. Sánchez acted quickly and, it seems, Alberto Núñez Feijóo went with the desire to approximate positions, knowing that this matter was slowly and inexorably undermining his reputation as a good negotiator capable of forging consensus. The pressure from the most conservative sector of the judiciary, those who understand justice as one of the main areas of dispute in what they call the cultural war, was leading him to a dead end that he cannot afford to reach the Presidency of the Government.
It is legitimate to propose alternative systems for the election of judges, but it cannot be in exchange for blocking its renewal until the majority is obtained to get it. Procedures must always be respected, not only when they are in favor of one’s own interests.
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And the judges themselves should also be aware that this type of drift distances them from society as a whole, which does not need more problems than it has. Those who defend that judges should elect the judges who govern them lose almost all reason when they pressure politicians to preserve their interests and their influence in the appointment of certain positions.
The traffic jam in the renewal of the CGPJ and the Constitutional Court places Spain somewhat in the same situation as Poland and Hungary, in quarantine due to what many in Brussels consider to be its distance from the acquis communautaire, the minimum institutional conditions to be considered comparable democracies. That Sánchez and Feijóo leave the respective corners of the ring of the judges themselves is good news. The opposite would leave them in the hands of a corporation that, as important as it may be, is not everything.