The Government does not see “imminent” the renewal of the Judiciary

The downpour due to the renewal of the Constitutional Court – and the Court of Accounts and the Ombudsman – has already passed with the election by Congress of four magistrates, but that of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) will still have to wait. Government does not see “imminent” for now the replacement in the governing body of the judges. The negotiation with the PP, which continues discreetly, does not shed light.

The message from the Executive that there is no hope of a forthcoming replacement of the members of the Judicial Power contrasts with what was stated this week by the CGPJ itself: the “hunch” in the body is that the agreement may be closed soon, even this same month of November, although they also warned that they did not have concrete information on the conversations being piloted by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the secretary general of the conservatives, Teodoro García Egea.

Sources of the highest level of the Government consulted by EL PERIÓDICO do not dare to speculate on when the pact will be unblocked. Not even if it is possible that it can be sealed before Christmas. The December 4 will be three years old since the mandate of the current CGPJ expired, elected in 2013 – when the PP enjoyed a very large absolute majority – and chaired by Carlos Lesmes, but everything indicates that this new mark will be surpassed. In the coalition partners, the pact with the PP to update the TC has generated discomfort and not little tension, for proposing above all to Enrique Arnaldo, a jurist closely linked to conservative training. He was, in fact, the lowest-voted candidate in the lower house on Thursday.

The popular ones continue to put as a condition that the Organic Law of the Judiciary (LOPJ) so that in the next process of renewal of the body (not the current one, which would run with the current regulations because the process started in 2018, when the mandate of the 20 members and their president expired) the judges directly choose their colleagues, to the 12 members of the judicial shiftl. A demand that the party leader, Pablo Casado, reiterated last Friday from the island of La Palma. His argument is that, “among other issues”, Brussels has told Poland “that its body of judges has to be elected by the majority of judges, and that is putting European funds at stake.”

Back and forth arguments

The Executive, however, responds that it is “totally and absolutely impossible“That the law be modified, as sources from Moncloa remarked this Sunday. The Socialists argue that, with the current wording, Congress and Senate select the members of judicial extraction from the list of candidates sent by the president of the Supreme Court and the CGPJ, who must be endorsed either by a judicial association or by 25 members of the judicial career in active service. In addition, they consider that the current system, by which the Chambers elect those 12 members of the judicial shift (in addition to the eight jurists), is perfectly valid because it is thus supported in 1986 the Constitutional Court and because ultimately sovereignty resides in the legislative power. The socialists and United We Can refuse the model advocated by the PP because the judicial career is mostly conservative. The pact between parties favors a more balanced composition of the CGPJ.

In the Government, therefore, they refuse to change the law. Nor are they open to a slight tweak to further restrict the power of choice of the Chambers. That is, so that they have fewer candidates from among which to appoint the members. The president himself, Pedro Sánchez, has reiterated on numerous occasions that the PP does not have a majority in Congress to change the law. The way out that remains for the popular, he insisted, as did Bolaños or the spokesman, Isabel Rodríguez, is to “comply with the Constitution” and proceed to renew the CGPJ without further “excuses.” Because it already accumulates more than 1,070 days of delay.

The popular ones take for granted that the candidates suggested by United We Can in the frustrated negotiation last February, the judge Jose Ricardo de Prada —One of the authors of the first sentence of the ‘Gürtel’ that ended with Mariano Rajoy out of Moncloa- and Victoria Rosell, delegate of the Government against Gender Violence, fall from the current negotiation. “We have never withdrawn them. That is why the pact was not closed in February “, they respond in the Executive. Sources close to the second vice president and leader of the purple ones in the Cabinet, Yolanda Díaz, assure that those names are still on the table.

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This being the case, reaching an agreement does not seem easy, since for now none of the formations gives in their initial approaches. In the Government they consider that the pact would already be made if the PP wanted, and they feel that Casado himself is the one who stops it because of the “pressures“internal (of his party) and external (of Vox) that he receives. The embers of the controversy with Arnaldo are still hot, but it is evident that as the legislature advances, everything will get complicated. regional elections in Andalusia, and all proximity of polls badly marries with a détente between PSOE and PP. For now, the conversations, very discreet, continue, and that is already a novelty compared to previous moments. Climate that extends to other matters, such as the negotiation of the National Security Law, just like advanced this Sunday THE PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA.