The 20 vowels that make up the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and its president have been in office since Dec 4, 2018. The term has expired for three years due to the impossibility of the two main parties of the Congress of Deputies, that is, PSOE and PP, to close an agreement. They were about to achieve it in November of that year, but a whatsapp sent by the then spokesman for the PP senators, Ignacio Cosidó, written with unusual harshness (“we will control the Second Chamber [del Supremo] from behind “), dynamited the pact. It was also tried again in the summer of 2020 and this past month of February was practically done, but in the end it was not possible either. Sources from both parties agree that the negotiation is “grounding“at a standstill, and they blame each other for the blockade.
After the whatsapp error, the leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, began to ask for a change in the model of election of the 20 members so that the “judges choose the judges.” The intention of the head of the opposition is to agree on this pending renewal with the system in force (in which everyone is elected equally by the two Chambers), but requires the commitment that the PSOE will support the modification from the Organic Law of the Judicial Power (LOPJ) to return to the method applied until 1985, for the judges to directly elect 12 vowels and the two Chambers, at 8. And that is the heart of the matter. According to the socialists, the PP must abide by the law and update the CGPJ as soon as possible and, according to the conservatives, it is essential to change the norm to “have a judicial system more independent”.
The clashes over the management of the pandemic, the non-stop Spanish electoral cycle (elections in Andalusia, Euskadi, Galicia, Catalonia, Madrid …), the encouragement of Vox felt by the main opposition party and the current internal crisis that lives Married by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, are making it difficult for the PP to decide to close this agreement with Pedro Sánchez for the cost political it might have. In fact, in the dome they emphatically assure that this matter “does not take its toll on them.” “My constituency is not concerned about this. It would be much worse if we agreed now without having managed to change the law “, say sources of the conservative leadership who are aware of the conversations that the secretary general of the PP, Teodoro García Egea, maintains with the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños.
In the dome of the PP they firmly assure that the non-renewal of the Judicial Power does not “take its toll”
At the end of October, both managed to advance in the other four institutions that also had expired terms: Tribunal Constitutional, the Accounts, the Defender of the People and the Spanish Agency for Data Protection. In the meetings in which they addressed the new appointments, the renewal of the CGPJ was also discussed, although it was agreed to leave it for a second phase due to the refusal of the Socialists to modify the organic law to elect the members. PSOE sources point out that they are looking for “a landing for the PP”. For now, the Socialist bench is opening “to debate a new legislative framework” to see if the organic law has to be “modernized”, without this meaning that there will be a radical change in the appointment model. The Government defends that the current system, validated by the TC, is fully in accordance with the Magna Carta.
On the table in any case, according to sources from the Executive, the names of the judge José Ricardo de Prada, that he was one of the authors of the sentence that led to the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy, and Victoria Rosell, Delegate of the Government against Gender Violence. The PP broke contacts in February because it did not accept those two names, considering them too “contaminated” by their ideas.
In Sánchez’s team they defend that “everything depends” on the popular and that the conversations, stopped, do not now revolve around names
PSOE and United We Can now refuse to remove them from the talks because it was hard for both of them to assume the appointment of Enrique Arnaldo, candidate closely linked to the PP, as magistrate to the TC. He was, in fact, the least voted candidate of all those agreed. However, from the Executive they emphasize that the negotiation is not now focused on the names, but on the “model“from CGPJ, but the dialogue was interrupted” a long time ago “and now “it depends on the PP”. In Moncloa they do not dare to anticipate if the agreement will materialize before the end of the year or it will be already in 2022.
A very tense relationship
The relationship between Sánchez and Casado has passed stages very tense, with both leaders avoiding each other at public events. However, after taking a first step to unclog all four organs in October, they both again made some gestures of cordiality. Contacts between the PSOE and the main opposition party are currently focusing on the CGPJ between the Government and the leadership of the PP while, in parallel, the parliamentary groups have made some prospections in other two matters: the reform of the law of National security and the official secrets law.
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The two parties agree that they have to agree on State matters, and the Executive sees it as “easy” to reach a consensus on national security and secrets
According to the agreement in Genoa and in the Executive, it is essential that, as the main parties with options to reach Moncloa, they agree on these matters of State. In fact, in Moncloa they prefer not to give details of the two texts because “noise” makes understanding difficult, and for Sánchez it is a priority to find him on both issues. What’s more, in your team they see “easy“Reaching agreements on two” very delicate “laws, in which if the prior consensus is not guaranteed, it is not worth taking them to the Cortes,” because ERC is not going to support them. “That is, they are sensitive matters in the courts. that PSOE and PP must be comfortable and compliant. In the first case, it is about a law regulating the preparation and disposition of the contribution of resources to national security. In the second, Sánchez’s Cabinet works on a new regulation for replace the official secrets of 1968 in which, among other things, it is necessary to mark the minimum number of years that will have to wait to know the most sensitive information from the State. According to the draft, which is already “quite advanced”, according to Moncloa, it will be at least 50 years.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com