shell saez (65 years old) is direct: “If there is one thing I regret, it is not having resigned sooner & rdquor ;, The resignation of the vowel by United Left in the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) was accepted by the acting president Rafael Mozo, last Friday, March 31.
Sáez took office on December 4, 2013 for a five-year term and almost ten years later submitted, for the second and final time, his resignation convinced that it is necessary to deactivate the blockade of the renewal maintained by the Popular Party since December 4, 2018. Sáez entered the Council for the turn of judicial secretaries, current lawyers of the administration of justice. He works in the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the National Court.
Don’t you feel a void in your life?
(Laughter) I still haven’t had time to get used to the idea. I wait for it to appear in the Official State Gazette (BOE).
We go back nine years and three months. It is December 4, 2013. And you take office. What did the member of Izquierda Unida Concha Sáez feel?The truth: I was scared to death. I was aware that the CGPJ is a constitutional body that supports the third power of the State and I felt quite small.
She was appointed for five years. And she almost gets to be double.Five seemed like a long time to me. December 4, 2018 was my lantern. That year, on December 3, I naturally said the day before my five years expired: “we have to go.” And it felt very bad. The previous members waited for us in 2013, we did an act together in the plenary room of the CGPJ. They left and we entered. And since 2018 it has been wait, wait, wait. Wait for someone to do something. And the moment came when I told myself -and I said it- that I no longer wait any longer.
What do you regret the most?
That it was a little late. I submitted my resignation to the previous president of the CGPJ, Carlos Lesmes, in December 2021. And he asked me not to resign because after the elections in Castilla y León he was going to renew it. It wasn’t worth leaving before an orderly departure in three months. And I, who was carrying my letter, thought about it and, immediately, told him that I would wait. And in the end, as I pointed out in the last plenary session together, in October 2022: “Gee, Carlos: you go before me!” And he smiled.
What did it feel like in a Judiciary dominated by the majority of the right or, if you prefer, conservative?
Very hard. Because the majority of the right was very consolidated. Because until recently, a simple majority was enough to prevail. To decide. Lesmes took office in 2013 with an organic law, 4/2013, which he and his friends drafted for his presidency. That led to the replacement of a collegiate body since 1985 by a presidential body since 2013. It’s bad. It’s a real roller, whatever you do. I also felt bad within my own group, the so-called progressive. The appointments that have been made over the years to the judicial leadership exceed any criteria of rationality.
The hardest moment, was it?
The hardest moment was August 2018. I had been on the Permanent Commission for six months. The penultimate order on the agenda was financial aid that magistrate Pablo Llarena had requested to cover his defense against a lawsuit filed against him in Belgium. And in the next one, my departure from the Permanent Commission for having been appointed manager of the General Judicial Mutual Fund. Since I opposed the help that Llarena was asking for, there was a ‘vendetta’. Lesmes was enraged. He said that it seemed unbelievable that a father of a family, an honest man and a lawyer of the highest category, could pretend that he was not helped. He went wild. And the next item on the agenda was that they admit my resignation from the Permanent Commission and my continuity as a member of the public. And they wanted me not only to leave the Permanent Commission to return to my situation as a member. They wanted to kick me out. Let him resign from the CGPJ! It was my most bitter moment. But I did not consent. The vocal José María Macías intended to consummate an exit that Lesmes was already envisioning.
Precisely, did not the entry of Macías in 2014 mark a before and after in the history of this CGPJ?
Yes that’s how it is. Mercè Pigem, the member of Convergencia i Uniò entered directly into the Permanent Commission and her position was very solid. Pigem was a victim of how the “Catalan problem” felt & rdquor; in the CGPJ. If something has dyed this CGPJ black and ugly, it is how she reacted to the ‘procés’. When they got rid of Mercè, there was the beginning of the road map for Lesmes and Macías against the ‘procés’. Because she said in the Permanent Commission of the CGPJ, of which she was a part, when asked by Lesmes, that after going to mass on November 9, 2014, she went to vote in the sovereignist consultation. It was all very coordinated. With Mercè, and therefore, as Lesmes would say, without Macías, this CGPJ would have been very different.
They removed Pigem, and Lesmes maneuvered to put Macías in.
That was a turning point. The first year, until then, was a period of trial and error. The expulsion of Mercè was what marked character during the period of government of the Popular Party.
Concha, what are the messages you would like to convey?
Shield the CGPJ to prevent this non-renewal ‘sine die’ from ever happening again, from this deliberate bloc of the Popular Party occurring again. That Congress and the Senate get their act together to assume a situation and use their authority to prevent it. Because they haven’t. And so it has not been clear to the whole of society that the PP is responsible. In addition, it is necessary to regulate the functions of the CGPJ in functions, worth the redundancy, in a more serious and detailed way. A delay of a few months is one thing. But not what has happened. And this has to be regulated. Change the system of majorities, establish that the appointment of members can be made by an absolute majority of half plus one, we are talking about the second round. And regarding the PP’s excuse for not renewing, that is, modifying the CGPJ’s election system, I think it must be maintained. Our system is a parliamentary system, based on the parliamentary majority, the Government is constituted and those who make up the body in charge of directing judicial policy are decided. Leaving the choice of members in the hands of the magistrates would be a serious mistake. The CGPJ is not a representative body but a political body. It does not represent the judges. Giving entry to judicial associations is to further pervert the system. You have to choose people of a high professional level, integrity, not dependent on political parties. Turn your back on the exclusive criteria of political loyalty because these are the beginning of the end of this body.
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