The member of the CGPJ, partner of the Cuatrecasas law firm, coordinates the “Casation Group” that carries out the appeals before the high court
Jose Maria Maciasmagistrate on leave of absence since 2005, partner of the Cuatrecasas law firm, and member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) since January 2015, directs, since 2021, the so-called “Casation Group” of said law firm, which specializes in filing appeals before the Supreme Court. Macías is one of the three members negotiating for the conservative group, along with Jose Luis Ballestero Y carmen llombartand the progressive sector of the Judiciary, represented by Alvaro Cuesta Y Roser Bachthe appointment of two magistrates to occupy the positions of the magistrates with an expired mandate since last June 12 in the Constitutional Court Santiago Martinez-Vares Y Juan Antonio Xiol.
In recent days, a magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, Pablo Llarena, a personal friend of Macías, and famous as an investigating judge in the case of the process and hunter, still frustrated, of independence leaders who fled from Spain to Belgium, United Kingdom and Switzerland, to avoid prosecution, has sounded to be one of the candidates of the conservative sector to the Constitutional Court. This possibility, as a version, follows at least three opportunities in the last month and a half in which Llarena publicly rejected said “offer & rdquor; in contacts with conservative members of the CGPJ. That rejection, along with that of other colleagues of his such as Manuel Marchena Y Antonio del Moralwas used as a pretext by the conservative sector to block the appointment of the two magistrates that corresponds to appoint the CGPJ in the TC.
Now that the Popular Party leader Alberto Nuñez Feijóo has decided break off negotiations sine die -until the legislature lasts- to renew the CGPJ, the conservative sector seems to detect a change of attitude in some candidates who previously declined the candidacy to be members of the TC. One of them, according to insistent versions, would be Llarena.
The explanation
What happened? As we already reported, Llarena has explained privately that it was not her intention to devalue the TC by rejecting the offers.
“He did not want to harm the candidacy of his wife, the surplus magistrate Thorny Gem, to be a member of the new CGPJ. Espinosa, director of the Spanish Judicial School, based in Vallvidriera, Barcelona, resigned from her position and obtained the guarantees to be a member in July 2018. The PP was willing to vote for her. But the renewal of November 2018 was frustrated and now also that of 2022 & rdquor ;, a judicial source has indicated to The Newspaper of Catalonia, of the Iberian Press group.
A magistrate consulted on the “renewed & rdquor; Llarena’s candidacy points out: “Llarena has been president of the Professional Association of the Judiciary (APM), a majority institution of conservative judges that has awarded its presidents, via CGPJ, with the post of magistrate of the TC. happened with Jose Gabaldon in 1992-1998, with Ramon Rodriguez Arribas in 2004-2013 and Santiago Martinez-Vares, who was already retired, in 2013-June 12, 2022. His appointment, then, would follow that tradition & rdquor ;.
Llarena, precisely, replaced Martínez-Vares as president of the APM and was appointed magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court in January 2016.
Macías, who maintains a long friendship with Llarena and his wife, joined the CGPJ, as has been noted, in 2015. And as a member he has participated in the election of numerous judges, including members of all the chambers of the Supreme Court, for part of the Plenary of the CGPJ. And as of 2021, as a partner of Cuatrecasas, one of the most powerful in Spain, he began to coordinate, as you have noted, the “Grupo de Cassación” department, specialized in the presentation of appeals before the Supreme Court, a extraordinary appeal whose purpose is to annul a judicial sentence of a lower court that incorrectly interprets or applies the law.
The dialogue
How did Macías, who was director of contentious affairs -his specialty- of the Generalitat de Catalunya with the president Jordi Pujol (2002 and 2003), to the CGPJ?
Through an “induced” carom.
One of the members of the Permanent Commission of the CGPJ was the lawyer Mercè Pigem, former deputy in the Congress of Deputies for the Democratic Convergence of Catalonia. On November 11, 2014, Pigem attends the meeting of said body. Just two days before, the 9-N consultation had been held in Catalonia, with the questions “Do you want Catalonia to be a State?” and “If so, do you want this state to be independent?”
–What happened on Sunday, Mercè? How has it been? – asked the president of the CGPJ, Carlos Lesmes.
Pigem, 60, answered humorously.
-Well, I live in La Bonanova and everyone is posh. On Sunday we go to mass and then we go to vote in the consultation.
Pigem, then, was one of the 2,305,290 voters in the “citizen participation act”.
Lesmes harshly scolded Pigem, who stood stoically.
Three weeks later, Lesmes carried out his vendetta with the help, according to judicial sources, of the Ministry of the Interior in charge of Jorge Fernandez Diaz–
The pigman operation
Pigem was accompanying her sister on a trip to Andorra to shop for Christmas. Pigem was carrying €9,500. In a control of the State security forces, they found the money and, upon checking his name, a member of the Civil Guard decided to open a file. The news leaked. On November 28, 2014, Lesmes called Pigem by phone and forced him to resign from the CGPJ. Lesmes had no authority for it. Members of the Permanent Commission are appointed by the Plenary of the CGPJ and they must respond to it. The Pigem cash case was filed without administrative penalty.
The Pigem operation was very profitable for Lesmes and for the PP. Lesmes managed to get rid of Pigem’s first substitute candidate Antonio Maria Alvarez-Buylla, dean of the College of Attorneys of Madrid, to admit the second substitute. how not: Jose Maria Macias.
Macías would quickly become the intellectual right-hand man of Lesmes and, above all, formed with him and with the magistrate paul larena a troika during the investigation of the cause of the procés in the Supreme Court. The fourth leg was the magistrate Juan Antonio Ramírez Sunyer, holder of the court of instruction number 13 of Barcelona.
The relationship
Macías and Ramírez Sunyer had met at the Spanish Judicial School in 1990. As a result of a complaint filed by the lawyer Miguel Duranthe former director of ONCE, Sunyer had become the Trojan horse of the process with the help of the lieutenant colonel of the Civil Guard Daniel Baenain charge of the judicial police, since February 2017.
Ramírez Sunyer was very ill, about to die, in November 2018. Macías advised Lesmes to send him a letter of thanks for the services provided in the investigation of the procés. The draft was prepared by Macías himself, who was already preparing the obituary of his friend. In the letter, sent on November 2, 2018, Lesmes congratulates him on the “heroic dimensions” that acquired the work of the judge in the “hostile” context & rdquor; of 10-1-2017, and shows his respect to “the person who is capable of so tenaciously pursuing what he believes in, what constitutes his dream and his goal: service to Justice and the State, to Spain, and the fulfillment of the duty that this service entails & rdquor ;. Lesmes ended by thanking Ramírez Sunyer “defend the Rule of Law and Justice without hesitation or fear in such turbulent times”and added: “You will always be a reference for me and for all my colleagues in the profession”.
In turn, Macías revealed in his obituary dated November 4, 2018 the true importance of the instruction of his deceased friend.
“His work as a judge, always impeccable, became newsworthy when he assumed the initial investigation of the events that led to the events of September 20, 2017 in the Ministry of Economy of the Generalitat. Subsequently, his investigation largely formed the basis of the one that, in turn, has been carried out by Judge Llarena for the events of October 1 of that year & rdquor ;.
Macías broke up with Lesmes as a result of the insistence of the now resigned president of the Supreme Court and CGPJ, Lesmes, on the need for said body to comply with the organic law of July 20, 2022 and appoint the two candidates to the corresponding TC.
As soon as the “Cassation Group & rdquor; at the Cuatrecasas law firm, Macías declared: “This is a safe bet for the firm. The team that we have formed brings together proven professional experience and knows the ground we tread well. We can give the best of services to our clients. After all, that’s what the practice of law is all about, isn’t it?”
Macías knows, in effect, the ground he treads in the Supreme Court.