The precariousness in the two bodies can worsen even more and chronicles the impossibility of unblocking the pending appointments for the operation of the main judicial institutions, starting with the Supreme Court.
Forty years after the victory of October 28, 1982, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) keeps tripping over and over again with the same stone: his inability to develop a policy for the judicial and constitutional sphere.
“It is the only political party capable of screwing up a thousand times in the same judicial hole & rdquor ;, a weighty judicial source told EL PERIÓDICO this Saturday, October 29. “And continue without realizing that the problem is not the roughness of the road, nor that the conservatives are evil, which they are, but that their problem is the persistent blindness and the determination to seek help from the worst Lazarillos, who end up drinking their wine, eating their bread, torreznos and sausage. They help them jump a river to stamp them against a stone wall & rdquor ;, she ironizes, referring to former ministers and former attorney generals who have “lent a hand & rdquor; in the last four years this negotiated.
Perhaps the sketched picture is with a broad brush because a central point should be added, which is, to borrow terminology from criminal law, that the PP has “control of the fact & rdquor ;. Or as he would say, more crudely in 2021, the magistrate on leave of absence Enrique López, Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Interior of the Community of Madrid: “The PP has the support of the majority of the judicial career & rdquor ;. And, as the magistrate with an expired mandate and president of the Constitutional Court (TC), Pedro González-Tevijano, has rounded up, law is a conservative science. “We jurists are almost all conservative people, because the Law [así, con mayúscula] It is a conservative science & rdquor ;, he explained on September 1.
But it is true that, also to use the language of Alfred Hitchcock, why not, the Government has launched a McGuffin – the resource that advances the suspense but is irrelevant to the plot – with the issue of future crime reform of sedition that the PP has caught on the fly to justify, in turn, the breakdown of negotiations to renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) after four years of deliberate blockade.
Reform that doesn’t work
Because, in effect, the McGuffin of that reform is that it is useless. Because the crime will not be decriminalized. And the reduction of the sentence, however significant it may be, will not allow Oriol Junqueras to present himself, for example, as a candidate for mayor, including a possible reduction in absolute disqualification as an accessory penalty for the crime; nor return to Spain, to take two examples, Carles Puigdemont or Marta Rovira, with the argument that they will not set foot in prison.
And to all this, do they not send Junqueras and Rovira in CKD?
And look where, this time it was not Gabriel Rufián, the ERC spokesman in Congress who collaborated in paving the way to flee to Feijóo. Last Wednesday, at the beginning of the debate on the amendments to the entire general budget of the State, when they put the artichokes in Congress after asking him about the crime of sedition, he said: “I dare to suggest to the PSOE that it speak less on the negotiations for 2023 & rdquor ;. They insisted on the call dejudicialization of the Catalan conflict through the reforms of the Penal Code. And he said: “At ERC we try to be discreet, silent people who want things to work out. And that is often incompatible with telegraphing real negotiations or not. Talk less & rdquor ;.
But a strange castling wanted the role traditionally assumed by Rufián to be represented by none other than the head of the Treasury and vice president, Maria Jesus Montero who, instead of paying attention to the pro-independence politician, assured on Thursday the 27th that, in effect, President Sánchez would respect his agreements: “It is a commitment that the president has and that we will bring to this chamber & rdquor ;. Said by those who have negotiated the support for the general budgets of the formations allied to the Government, this was like saying: “Of course they support us and we will comply with the reform of sedition & rdquor ;. The pretext for the PP was served. Although the vice president later said that “not at all & rdquor; she had meant what had been “interpreted & rdquor ;.
Between Ayuso and the polls
The landscape behind Feijoo coupwhich has been influenced by pressure from its barons, especially Isabel Díaz Ayuso, but above all the recovery of the PSOE in the polls, facilitated by the alibi of sedition (by the way, the PP has been leading a rebellion against the constitutional renewal in terms of the institutions since 2018), it remains even more precarious than it already was.
Let’s see.
In the CGPJ there is an alternate president, Rafael Mozo, instead of the resigned Carlos Lesmes. Although a very precautionary measure against the agreement of the CGPJ that prevented the presidency of Supreme Court Justice Francisco Marín Castán in the CGPJ was dismissed, the third chamber of the Supreme Court, for Contentious-Administrative Matters, has to implement the precautionary measure. This is listening to the arguments of the magistrate and member of the CGPJ, Wenceslao Olea, an intimate of Lesmes, who questions the aforementioned agreement and wants the president of both the Supreme Court and the CGPJ to be, as Lesmes wanted, Marín Castán, who has already assumed as president of the Supreme Court.
Therefore, Mozo’s alternate presidency is at the mercy of the courts.
In the Constitutional Court, the Government is now more obliged than ever before to appoint the two magistrates that correspond to it and that should have been appointed on September 13 last.
It so happens that one of these two magistrates is the current president, Pedro González-Trevijano, appointed in the TC by the government of Mariano Rajoy in June 2013. Therefore, once the Government appoints its two candidates, González -Trevijano leaves the presidency.
The situation is provided for in the organic law of the Constitutional Court. According to article 9.4, the “vice president is responsible for replacing the president in the event of a vacancy, absence or other legal reason…”. Therefore, the current vice president, Juan Antonio Xiol, would replace González-Trevijano, who would leave the post vacant.
However, Xiol also has the mandate expired on June 12. It is up to the CGPJ, who elected him in 2013, to designate the substitute.
If the PP, in addition to blocking the renewal of the CGPJ, continues with its strategy and urges the conservative members not to elect the two magistrates that it is up to the Council and that appointment is paralyzed sine die, this also has consequences on the functioning of the CT.
new context
First, the conservative sector of the TC threatened in recent months, with González-Trevijano at the head, to prevent the two magistrates appointed by the Government from being sworn in if the appointment of the two from the CGPJ did not take place at the same time.
It is possible that in the new context, this resistance will have difficulty materializing. because the government has to comply with the Constitution and it cannot be admitted that the CGPJ -due to a political maneuver- prevents him from doing so. On the other hand, there is a ruling from 2016, with a presentation by magistrate Fernando Valdés, signed by González-Trevijano and all the magistrates, according to which the partial renewal of the TC is constitutional in the event that the CGPJ does not want to or does not proceed to do so. .
But overcome – it remains to be seen – that stumbling block, there is another.
According to organic law of the Constitutional Court already mentioned, the election of president and vice president of the TC is carried out under certain conditions. Article 16.3 stipulates: “The designation for the position of magistrate of the TC will be made for nine years, renewing the court by third parties every three. From that moment on, the election of president and vice president provided for in article 9 will take place.
That is to say: to elect a new president and vice president of the TC, the renewal of the four magistrates whose mandate has expired and who represent a third of the court of guarantees is needed.
all scenarios
If the Government appoints its two magistrates and the conservative sector of the CGPJ maintains, by order of Feijóo, the blockade and, therefore, the four are not present, the election of a new president will be would postponewho knows until when. Perhaps until Feijóó and Díaz Ayuso allow it.
Related news
The appointment of the two magistrates by the Government already introduces the progressive majority in the TC, which would add six magistrates, compared to the five of the conservative sector, which has lost one, given the illness of magistrate Alfredo Montoya, whose The position will no longer be filled because it depends on the Senate and the votes of the PSOE are needed, which were committed to in the now aborted pact.
Therefore, unless the progressive and conservative sectors in the CGPJ, under the alternate presidency of Mozo, reach an agreement in the coming weeks on the appointment of the two that correspond to him, the guririgay has seen a considerable jump since this Thursday, October 27.