This is how the Constitutional Court remains: the 12 members, one by one

After the vote of the Congress for the candidates to the Constitutional Court and the plenary session scheduled for this afternoon, the composition of the Constitutional Court will be modified by the departure of its current president, Juan José González Rivas, the vice president, Encarnacion Roca, and the magistrate Andres Ollero (the fourth magistrate of the third that should have been renewed two years ago, Fernando Valdes, already left the TC without being replaced). Their place will be occupied by the magistrates appointed at the proposal of the PP Enrique Arnaldo and Concepción Espejel and, from the PSOE, Ramón Sáez Valcárcel and Inmaculada Montalbán.

Despite the change, the majority are not altered in the high court because both Ollero and González Rivas were once proposed by the PP, while Roca and Valdés were proposed by the PSOE. Despite this, the vice president has shared the criteria of the conservatives in practically all the deliberations, including the unconstitutionality of the states of alarm, in which paradoxically the president voted with the progressives, as Ollero also did with respect to the first.

Although in this renewal the progressive sector will be reinforced, it will not be until the next one, scheduled for June of next year, when the current proportion of seven conservative-minded magistrates compared to five, who are presumed progressive, will be repeated inversely . Until then these are the magistrates who will make up the Constitutional Court:

Santiago Martínez-Vares

Appointed to the Constitutional Court in 2013 by the General Council of the Judiciary, he was president of the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy. It is by age the judge considered to be the oldest of the third who is in the last of his mandate, so he will be in charge of presiding over the next plenary session in which, after the new magistrates take office, the new president of the Constitutional Court will be elected.

Pedro González-Trevijano

Named at the proposal of the Government of José María Aznar, the former rector of the Rey Juan Carlos University is the magistrate with the most ancestry over those who form the conservative sensitivity bloc, so if the tradition is fulfilled, he will be the next president of the Constitutional Court.

Juan Antonio Xiol

The one who was president of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court was elected to the Constitutional Court by the CGPJ. Progressive trend He has voted against, among other rulings, which are endorsing that of the Supreme Court against the leaders of the ‘procés’. Following the tradition of the high court, he will be elected vice president with González-Trevijano as president, because the two sensitivities share representation based on which is the majority sensibility at each moment.

Antonio Narvaez

The one who was lieutenant prosecutor of the Supreme Court was elected to the Constitutional by the Government of Mariano Rajoy. He has been the speaker of the latest sentences against the government’s policy against the pandemic: that of the congressional stoppage and that of the second state of alarm, annulled for reasons other than the first, whose presentation corresponded to González-Trevijano.

Alfredo Montoya

Professor of Labor Law was elected by the Senate at the proposal of the PP. He is not attending the last plenary sessions as he is recovering from an ailment he suffered last summer. That is why the latest resolutions on the states of alarm, the reviewable permanent prison or the one that annulled the capital gains have only been signed by 10 magistrates.

Ricardo Enriquez

He was appointed a Constitutional magistrate by the Senate in 2014 to replace the late Francisco José Hernando. When the mandate that corresponded to the latter expired, in 2017, the same Chamber reappointed him at the proposal of the PP not having completed the nine-year mandate. In some circles his name has been shuffled as the future president of the Constitutional Court to try to avoid that after the next renewal he was a magistrate with a progressive tendency, an option that sources in the court rule out.

Candido Conde-Pumpido

A magistrate of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, he was the State Attorney General during the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. He was appointed to the Constitutional by the Senate in 2017 at the proposal of the PSOE. He was in charge of coordinating the resources of the ‘procés’ with Narváez until he was challenged and chose to abstain from all of them.

Maria Luisa Balaguer

Professor of Constitutional Law was elected by the Senate at the proposal of the PSOE. Since she arrived at the TC in 2017, she has been characterized by giving a feminist perspective to the deliberations that she captures in the individual votes that usually accompany all sentences. Many times he signs them with Xiol, as in those of the ‘procés’, and sometimes also with Conde-Pumpido.

Enrique Arnaldo

Lawyer of the Courts and founder of the law firm Legal and Procedural Studies el candidate of the PP has starred in this renewal of the Constitutional Court with the information from ‘El Periódico de España’ for having been charged in the Palma Arena case and the reports that it has prepared for administrations mainly controlled by the PP, for which the socialist Odón Elorza asked him in the appointments committee for their appointment.

The Constitutional Court will give you its approval in the plenary session of suitability because you meet the requirements: be Spanish; judge, prosecutor, lawyer or university professor with 15 years of experience with recognized competence. The current Madrid Minister of Justice, Enrique López, only had problems passing this exam in 2013, because it was doubted whether he had completed the necessary period of experience for the time he had been in the CGPJ.

Conception Espejel

The current president of the Criminal Chamber of the National High Court is the first woman to have been proposed to the Constitutional by the PP. When she was at the head of the Second Section, she was separated by her colleagues from the plenary session from all the matters of the Gürtel case due to her proximity to the party chaired by Pablo Casado. He made a particular vote in favor of the conviction of the ‘major’ of the Mossos Josep Lluís Trapero.

Ramón Sáez Valcárcel

Proposed to the Constitutional by the PSOEThis magistrate of the National Court, who has never hidden his leftist ideology, will be in the judicial career for 36 years in January. Among the resolutions of which he has been rapporteur, the one that acquitted Trapero and the one on the assault on Parliament stands out, although this was revoked by the Supreme Court that ended up condemning its protagonists, which the Constitutional Court confirmed later.

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Immaculate Montalbán

Magistrate in the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia has been proposed to the Constitutional by the PSOE. He was a member of the General Council of the Judiciary that began its mandate in 2008, although for six years before he was part of its committee of experts on domestic violence. She is considered an expert in gender equality, gender violence and anti-discrimination law, which is why she was elected to chair the Observatory against Domestic and Gender Violence and the Equality Commission of Spain.