The eight members of the General Council of the Judiciary appointed at the proposal of the PP who forced the celebration this Monday of a plenary session to discuss the future amnesty law They achieve their goal. The institutional declaration has finally obtained nine supports, since the eight proponents has been added also a member of the conservative sector and a judge of the Supreme Court Wenceslao Olea.
The acting president, Vicente Guilarte, has written an explanation of vote in which he states that does not agree with the initiative legislative but considers it convenient wait for processing of the proposition.
Finally, there were only 15 members in the Plenary Session, fourteen in person and the progressive Pilar Sepúlveda electronically, when the threat of the progressive Álvaro Cuesta’s plan was fulfilled for considering the meeting “manifestly illegal” and its purpose is contrary “to the law.” legal and constitutional functions” of the body.
Cuesta, the member closest to the Government, announced his resignation from attending the meeting in a letter sent to Guilarte this Sunday in which He even treated his companions as “rebels” for the content of the meeting.
The text of the institutional declaration clearly and extensively reveals the “intense concern and desolation” of the body for the amnesty law that the PSOE is finalizing with ERC and Junts, within the framework of the negotiations for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez as president of the Government.
They expressly quote Pedro Sánchez, pointing out that “confusing the interest of Spain with the interest of the acting president of the Government for avoid the hypothetical formation of governments of parties of a different ideology to theirs is something manifestly incompatible with political alternation”.
The “enormity of the consequences” What has been announced by the acting President of the Government is that “it turns the independence of the courts and legal certainty, justice in short, into a chimera,” the Council states in its statement.
Defense of its legitimacy
The text adds to the original proposal a mention of the legitimacy of the body, questioned by both Cuesta and the Government through demonstrations made by the former member and Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles. Now, the majority of the CGPJ responds that in response to the comments about the lateness of its statement “under the argument that this Council should have waited to know the text of the bill to issue its opinion, they affirm both their “legitimacy as well as the opportunity to do it now.”
They add, throughout a long 9-page statement, that said legitimacy “is also part of the European standards on judicial independence.” “It cannot be considered in any case unrelated to the functions of the Councils of Justice, nor of course this General Council of the Judiciary, to raise one’s voice when Democracy, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law may be in danger“, they add.
Entering into the question of the amnesty, the governing body of the judges denounces that a judicial technique will be chosen, the proposal of law, which allows the report of the Council itself and the rest of the advisory bodies to be dispensed with. “It is therefore absurd that we are asked to wait to do something that It could not be done because the path that prevents it has been deliberately chosen.“adds the institutional statement.
Regarding the fact that they criticize a law that does not yet exist, the Council affirms that the substance has already been announced by the different political leaders who are negotiating. Regardless of this, they affirm that “whatever its foundation, and whatever its objective and subjective aspects,” the amnesty “conflicts with constitutional principles diverse”.
Judges, responsible for the conflict
Regarding the place in which the future law leaves the Judiciary, the Council warns that “the link to the aforementioned conflict with the projected amnesty falls within the scope of the courts, If not the genesis of that conflict, if at least having sustained it.” Faced with this, the future law “would come to influence the Judiciary by declaring the annulment of sentences dictated by the courts that are part of it”.
For this reason, they understand that the plans of the Government and the Catalan independence forces involve “a unacceptable invasion in our Constitutionspecifically, of the powers that, in a regime of exclusivity, the supreme norm entrusts to the courts.” They warn that community treaties are also violated and the EU could act.
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They conclude that, furthermore, “it supposes generate a legally irresponsible political class and unpunished for their crimes” and violates the independence of the courts.
For their part, the progressive vowels have justified their vote against by pointing out that “with the proposal for an institutional declaration there is a serious risk of confuse citizens on the opinion of the judges and magistrates themselves on the content of a norm that does not exist and that, if approved by the legislative power, the one competent to do so, they will be forced to apply, or, where appropriate, to legally submit to constitutional controls planned”