A last procedure before renewal. The Plenary of the Constitutional Court will meet this Thursday for the last time with its current composition and chaired by Pedro Gonzalez-Trevijanoafter reaching the surprising agreement in the General Council of the Judiciary that allows four of its members to be renewed, one of them the president himself.
It is a government meetingwhich normally ships in ten minutes because it has a single point on its agenda, the examination of the verification of compliance with the requirements demanded for the appointment of its new members, who are the former Minister of Justice Juan Carlos Campo and the former advisor Laura Díez by the Government and the that César Tolosa and María Luisa Segoviano were presidents of the Supreme Court on behalf of the governing body of the judges.
Sources of the body belonging to both sectors point to The Newspaper of Spain what It is not expected that any of the proposed magistrates will have any problem obtaining the placet, since the law only requires that those who access this body are jurists of recognized prestige with more than 15 years of professional practice. This procedure will be followed by his inauguration, foreseeably next week, and then the time will come to appoint a new president, who is almost certainly the progressive magistrate Cándido Conde-Pumpido. From this moment on, the body will have a progressive majority of 7 members against 4 conservative magistrates, and this sensitivity will be the majority for the next decade.
The placet that is granted this Thursday is a procedure that precisely tried to suppress one of the amendments introduced by the PSOE and Unidas Podemos in the recent penal reform that were paralyzed by the Constitutional Court itself last Monday, in an unprecedented decision that many interpreted as a questionable interference in the legislative power. The government sought with the suppression of this formality accelerate the renewal of the Court with its two candidatesbefore a blockade in the appointments corresponding to the Council of the Judiciary, which was suddenly surpassed by the members of this body.
Montoya’s square
This being the case, the institutional procedures go ahead and as It would only remain pending to replace another of the magistrates, Alfredo Montoya, appointed in his day at the proposal of the PP by the Senate and who left the court in July for health reasons. In any case, the lack of agreement between the PSOE and the PP to renew this position is the same one that drags on for the appointment of the new members of the Council of the Judiciary, expired for more than four years, and there does not seem to be any sign of resolution of this matter. If Montoya were replaced, the relationship of forces would add one vote on the conservative side, reaching five compared to seven progressives.
In November 2021, when the last renewal took place, the plenary session held to approve the new magistrates that Congress then had to designate threw one vote against of the four proposed names -Enrique Arnaldo, Concepción Espejel, Ramón Sáez and Inmaculada Montalbán- although the author of the veto never came to light because it is a secret ballot.
In 2013 another precedent of lack of unanimity was registered, but only with respect to one candidate, Enrique López, who was saved by the casting vote of then-President Pascual Sala. This vote against is something unusual, since the Suitability Plenary is normally a mere process of checking formal requirements and this Thursday no surprises are expected.
Overturn in sensitivity
The renewal of the Constitutional Court is regulated in the Constitution itself, in article 159.3, and establishes that the members of the body They will be appointed for a period of nine years and will be renewed by third parties every three years.as follows: four magistrates appointed by the Senate, four by Congress and the remaining four to be distributed among the CGPJ Government, which is what has just occurred.
The bipartisan logic that has existed up to now in our country has allowed, during the 42-year history of the TC, the designations that make a difference on the ‘sensitivity’ of the court -whether there is a majority of conservative or progressive magistrates at any given time- were those that correspond to the Government of the day. This is due to the balance that is assumed in the appointments of the ten remaining magistrates, who are appointed thanks to the political agreement in Parliament -two at the proposal of the PSOE and another two at the proposal of the PP, both in the turn of Congress and that of the Senate-, and to the consensus between similar sensitivities within the CGPJ.
For this reason, when the renewal occurs at this time, under the PSOE Government accordingly, a progressive majority will be secured until at least June 2030. And this provided that at that time the right is governing, since if by then there is still a left-wing government, the ‘progressive’ period of the body will be renewed for another nine years.
Will Conde-Pumpido be the president?
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About Conde-Pumpido, who is the most serious candidate for the presidency of the body until the end of 2025 -despite the opposition that his candidacy arouses among the most extreme sectors of the PP and the judicial right- the reality is that in his day he was appointed to the TC by consensus. Both he and Montoya were proposed by the Madrid Assembly, also by consensus, since the magistrates appointed by the Senate are considered representatives of the Autonomous Communities, and are previously proposed by the autonomous parliaments.
As pointed out from his environment to this newspaper, it is surprising that lately they blame him whims of support for the Catalan separatists, when he was the magistrate who directed the commission that prepared all the drafts of the sentences that rejected the appeals of those convicted of the ‘procés’, and even ended up being challenged by Oriol Junqueras and Carles Puigdemont. She is disputed by María Luisa Balaguer, also a progressive, who has not run directly, but has stated in several interviews that she will not reject the presidency if she is supported by the majority of her colleagues.