More than a dozen magistrates of the Supreme Court want to go to the Constitutional Court

The proof of this would be that the president of the Criminal Chamber, the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, Manuel Marchenaconsulted by the president of the TS and the CGPJ, Carlos Lesmes -and others-, rejected the offer. A Madrid newspaper dedicated a big headline to the alleged “resignation” as an event revealing the depth of a crisis that is very difficult to resolve. If Marchena -and others from the Criminal Chamber- do not want to, how will the two vacancies be filled?

Is it only necessary to think of magistrates of the Criminal Chamber? If by his own personal strategy, Marchena (63 years old), who tried to be president of the TS and the CGPJ in 2013 and 2018, legitimately prefers to bet on the position in five years – the third could be the charm – before entering now in a TC to integrate into the conservative minority, it is understandable. And it is no less a strategy of ‘wait and see’, that is, wait to enter the TC in other circumstances. Because opportunities will not be lacking.

But turn that presumed “resignation”which is not, because it is an option, in the proof that candidates for the TC cannot be found, it seems like a joke.

Looking for a place

“I have accounted for at least 12 magistrates of the Supreme Court who have asked us to take them into account at the time we pray, when we have to choose & rdquor ;, he tells EL PERIÓDICO Alvaro Cuesta, lawyer and member of the permanent commission of the CGPJ. “We know that the presidents of the First Chamber (Civil); the Fourth (Social) and the Fifth (Military), are candidates, as well as many magistrates of the Third (Contentious-Administrative) & rdquor ;, he adds.

It is, respectively, Francisco Martin Castan, Maria Luisa Segoviano Y Jacobo Lopez Barja de Quiroga. The first two have a conservative bias and the third progressive. “In the Third Chamber there are a large number of magistrates willing & rdquor ;, Cuesta has specified. Also from the Social Chamber there is a conservative candidate in the person of Vicente Antonio Sempere, professor of Labor Law.

Indeed, judicial sources point to paul luke, Jose Manuel Bandres Y Edward Espin, a magistrate with a progressive profile, as candidates who have transmitted their active disposition. But there are also conservative magistrates who could be candidates such as Ines Huertavery close to Lesmes.

It doesn’t seem like he asked for it though. Pilar Tessoof the Third Chamber, continues to be a consensus magistrate to be a possible new president of the Supreme and CGPJ.

The Government, for its part, has in mind candidates such as Maria Luis Cuerda ArnauProfessor of Criminal Law, or Concepción Escobar, Professor of International Law.

media maneuvers

Although the members of the CGPJ cannot be elected to the TC, there is an exception: Rafael Fernandez Valverde. Because he is retired. And technically this conservative magistrate with several mandates in the CGPJ can be appointed. Sources from the CGPJ assure this newspaper that he has expressed his desire to jump to the court of guarantees.

Although until the appointment of the magistrate Candido Count-Pumpido they had no criminal presence in the TC; now, instead, there are two others: Mirror Conception Y Ramon Saezboth coming, it is true, from the National High Court, not from the Supreme Court.

It gives the impression that the accent of the media on Marchena’s refusal, and apparently, of the magistrates Antonio del Moral Y paul larenaof the Second Chamber, would respond to the desire of the right of the judiciary to oppose Conde-Pumpido, coming from the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, to an alleged heavyweight from the same quarry.

And it is relevant to know that the output of Rock Embodiment and soon from Juan Antonio Xiol It will leave the TC without experts in civil law, on the one hand. And that the resignation of Fernando Valdes Dal Re and sick leave Raphael Montoya has already deprived the court of labor law specialists.

Lesmes informed some members of the CGPJ, after the individual vote of seven conservative members against the appointment of Alvaro Garcia as Attorney General of the State, that if they persisted and on September 8, and the following days, they tried to block the appointment of the two magistrates to replace Santiago Martinez-Vares Y Juan Antonio Xiol in the TC, I would not tolerate “hooliganism & rdquor ;. Last Monday, he stated, quite angry, that the CGPJ should make these appointments. Which is a duty.

peace is far

Alberto Nunez Feijoo tries to maintain the constitutional blockade and its pressure feeds the most recalcitrant sector of the CGPJ, which is backed by that image of alleged protest and veto of the Supreme Court magistrates, symbolized by the “resignation & rdquor; of magistrates of the Criminal Chamber.

But the appointments, if they finally take place, do not mean peace on the battlefield. The judicial right and the Supreme is already contemplating a second derivative, a plan B. And in that objective is to prevent Conde-Pumpido from being the next president of the TC, whose election must be carried out after the substitution of the expired magistrates.

The progressive majority will have the presidency, that will be the case.

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But an alternative that the right is already considering is a progressive candidacy with consensus supported by Pedro Gonzalez-Trevijanocurrent president, in the person of the magistrate Mary Louise Balaguerthe lesser evil compared to the greater of Conde-Pumpido.

It is the finger of the expired president but president at last. He tries to put into practice the play ‘jubilee‘based on his book’God’s finger‘. The hand of man, which in the two weeks of representation starting on August 31 in Madrid has the assistance of the entire judicial world, as a result of invitations carefully sent from the presidential secretariat of the Madrid street of Domenico Scarlatti, CT headquarters.