“The PP is not going to delay the renewal of the CGPJ and the Constitutional Court”

Alberto Núñez Feijóo announced, on April 3, at the first meeting of the executive committee after the extraordinary congress, in Seville, that Esteban González Pons, vice-president and deputy spokesperson for the European PP, would be institutional vice-secretarya function to which Justice and Home Affairs are added.

Feijóo has not clarified whether the old secretariat that López occupied – in which he succeeded Rafael Catalá – will continue or who could be its owner. However, he has defined an issue that will occupy the next pact negotiations with the government of Pedro Sánchez: who is going to wear them is González Pons.

“We are going to resume negotiations with the government on the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and the Constitutional Court (TC) without delay”, he said this Wednesday from Brussels in a conversation with EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA.

Given the fact that the mandates of four magistrates of the TC expire in mid-June, including those of President Pedro González Trevijano and Vice President Juan Antonio Xiol, González Pons pointed out: “Although it is not our main priority and it is for the Governmentwe want to start the contacts once we make our composition of the place and I insist: we are not going to delay the process & rdquor ;.

Regarding the Ministry of Justice and the Interior in the organization chart of the PP, González Pons points out that a decision on its future is still pending. “It has not been decided yet if it will continue as it was configured. But, in any case, if it is decided that it should continue and someone is appointed to head it, that secretariat will depend on the Institutional Deputy Secretary & rdquor ;. That is to say: by González Pons.

The interlocutor of the minister of the Presidency of the government, Félix Bolaños, will not be, therefore, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, as was the case in the time of Pablo Casado, in which the leading role fell to Teodoro García Egea, but Esteban González Pons. This does not mean that Núñez Feijóo will be absent. Sources consulted tell this newspaper that the new leader of the PP plans a meeting with the president of the Supreme Court and the General Council of the Judiciary since 2013, Carlos Lesmes, in the near future to analyze the situation.

Lesmes, precisely, has called a plenary session of the CGPJ for April 20 in order to approve the report on the preliminary draft of the law for the real and effective equality of trans people and the guarantee of the rights of LGTBI people. Not a few members of the CGPJ, including the president himself, counted on the fact that this could be the “full goodbye & rdquor; of the already expired body of judges.

The “evaporation” or mutis for the forum of Enrique López supposes a change in the CGPJ renewal negotiations model. During the time of Casado, a double channel was implemented: Bolaños-García Egea and López-Juan Carlos Campo, then Minister of Justice. There will now be a single direct channel. And before definitively agreeing on the possible renewal, Feijóo and Sánchez will meet to give the final push. The photo, wow.

González Pons is not starting from scratch, but, according to sources consulted, will review the fallow appointments of the own members. And people changes are expected. This could lead the PP and United We Can, if the PSOE gives it the opportunity to participate, to also introduce some modifications.

The preliminary agreement put into practice by the PP-PSOE in some of the partially renewed institutions – for example, the Constitutional Court – consists of not questioning the proposed candidates. As we have already reported, with or without renewal of the Judiciary, the coverage of the four vacancies and a fifth due to illness in the TC is practically guaranteed.

Because the TC has to resolve two appeals of unconstitutionality – from the PP and Vox – against the organic law of 2021 that prohibits making appointments to the expired CGPJ. The TC could, according to consulted magistrates, declare the organic law partially unconstitutional on the grounds that appointing the two magistrates in the TC that corresponds to the CGPJ cannot be prohibited by a law that is below the Constitution, which obliges to renew the organ on time. This would allow the current CGPJ to make both appointments, which would be completed with the other two magistrates that the Government has to appoint.

The appointment of the new magistrates will imply the election of the new president of the Constitutional Court, as established by the organic law of said body. A change of president in the context of a change of the majority, which will go from the conservative sector to the so-called progressive sector. Thus, as felt in the environment, the replacement of Pedro González Trevijano by Cándido Conde-Pumpido, magistrate of the TC since 2017, former magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court and former Attorney General of the State, is outlined.