Maria Luisa Segoviano (Valladolid, 1950), the brand new magistrate of the constitutional Court chosen by him General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) who will take office, along with the other three magistrates -Juan Carlos Campo and Laura Díez, for the Government, and César Tolosa, also for the CGPJ-, this Monday, January 9, at 12:30 p.m. hours, is the one who has the ace up his sleeve to decide who will be the new president or president of the highest court of guarantees.
Why?
The majority of the TC changes after nine years of dominance from the conservative sector to the so-called progressive sector. If Segoviano is included in the latter, the new majority would be seven magistrates and the minority four. The Popular Party maintains that it is an overwhelming majority, but it is a party forgetful with arithmetic. Because the conservatives came to have a majority of eight to three, before the appointments of November 2021 in the TC.
The fact is that, for a few months, one of the magistrates of the progressive sector, Maria Luisa Balaguer (Almería, 1953), has launched her own campaign, independent of her sector, to be the next president. Balaguer, professor of Constitutional Law, professor of journalism and writer, has made the idea that she would be the consensus chair. Why so much Pedro Gonzalez-Trevijano Y Enrique Arnaldo, outgoing president and magistrate, respectively, both from the conservative sector would have encouraged him, according to sources from the court itself, to lead said project. If the four, including the new magistrate Tolosa, voted in favor of her, with the vote of the candidate (Balaguer) and María Luisa Segoviano, the six votes would be rounded, leaving the progressive sector at five. In other words, a magistrate enrolled in the progressive group since 2017 would rise above her sector to be the president and leave the progressive group in a minority.
The reencarnation
It would not be, if that happens, the first time in which the conservative sector breaks the progressive sectorneither in the CGPJ nor in the TC. Carlos Lemes, the former president of the CGPJ, was the master of the strategy of deciding who was the “progressive& rdquor; favorite of the conservative sector and proceed to appoint him, apart from the thoroughbred conservative (it was the case of the Vice President of the Supreme Court and CGPJ Angel Juanesin 2013).
But in the TC it would be, never better said, reincarnation, on a scale never seen, of course, of what happened with the magistrate embodies rockwho when the progressives decided to nominate vice president of the TC Fernando Valdes Dal Re, changed sides and agreed to be vice president with conservative votes. This cooptation had a high price, because Roca aligned himself in multiple sentences with the right, some of the last of which were those of unconstitutionality of states of alarm due to the pandemic that Vox requested since the state of emergency had not been declared.
And look where a carambola to end the deliberate blockade of the TC by the PP and the conservative magistrates of the TC and the GGPJ -the election of María Luisa Segoviano- has turned her into the Godot that the ten remaining magistrates await because of her – if the computations of the other María Luisa, the Balaguer, are reliable -, if she has the four conservative votes, the majority of the candidate would depend.
Segoviano was proposed last September -after suggesting to the vocal Alvaro Cuesta on September 7 that the progressive sector included her among its candidates, as stated by said member of the Permanent Commission of the CGPJ to EL PERIÓDICO, which happened.
In the first list of five candidates, the progressives introduced Segoviano, but as the conservative sector demanded, without advancing any of their own candidates, that the proposal be specified in a single candidate, the progressives proposed the magistrate of the Third Chamber of the Court Supreme, Jose Manuel Bandres. There they anchored.
The strategy of the coordinator of the conservative group in the CGPJ continued to be one of blocking and hold out until the next general election, but he wanted to show that those who put sticks in the wheels of the renovation of the TC were the progressives. Convinced that they would not accept such an arbitrary, ostensible and personal veto from magistrate Bandrés, they introduced Segoviano to a new list.
But, according to the president of the CGPJ, Rafael Mozo to EL PERIÓDICO, the new proposal left the sector of which it is a part, “without an option & rdquor ;.
avoid agony
Why? Because in light of the new order of interference of the TC in the Congress and the Senate with the admission of precautionary measures in favor of the PP against the rules to deactivate the blockade, this issue could not be reconsidered through a bill. Why Enrique Arnaldo, the rapporteur, left black on white that the TC could not be partially renewed (for example, with the two magistrates appointed by the Government). That resolution would always apply.
Both the magistrates of the progressive sector of the TC and the CGPJ decided, then, fit the Bandrés veto and avoid another year of agony or coma of the TC.
And in that, as in the song by the Cuban composer Carlos Puebla, María Luisa Segoviano arrived.
pioneer like first woman president of the Fourth Social Chamber of the Supreme CourtSegoviano’s profile fits the needs of the TC, that is, an expert in labor law, because she has run out of them (Fernando Valdés and Alfredo Montoya), given that the reform (of Mariano Rajoy’s labor reform) is one of the great unfinished business.
The progressive sector, according to sources close to these magistrates, will meet to designate their single progressive candidate proposal. These sources indicate that he will be the magistrate Candid Count-Pumpido. It will be the first step, but not the final one. Because Balaguer’s position is the sword of Damocles.
Who will vote for the presidency of the Constitutional Court in plenary that the oldest magistrate must convene this week, Ricardo Enriquez?
Last Monday, January 2, before going on vacation, María Luisa Segoviano anticipated that this Monday she wanted to know “the plan or forecast that each of the applicants may have& rdquor ;. And she added: “Apart from the management and organization powers of the person who presides, there is also an element that is strictly personal, and it is the character that one has, the ability to relate to others, empathy. Smoothing out rough edges between the members that make up the court, trying to bring positions closer together, being able to calm things down at a given moment and soften things up. I think this is very important when it comes to making the court work. I have heard opinions from different people & rdquor ;.
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Was a message about your impending vote?
This week, in this case, Godot María Luisa will arrive and, unlike the song, speculation will end.