The judiciary hopes to be renewed before summer

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• Vox. Offers to "actively participate" in the renewal of the CGPJ

The future of the legislature will determine that there is renewal in two key organs for Justice , the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) whose mandate expired in December 2018, and the Constitutional Court, where a third of its magistrates saw how their mandate ended last November.

From the new Socialist Executive there is a "firm spirit" of renewing both institutions, discharging the possible responsibility of the blockade in the Popular Party. The president of the Government , Pedro Sánchez, called on his first press conference in Moncloa , the training of Pablo Casado to renovate these bodies and reproached him for trying to "block Justice after trying to block politics."

That message of the necessary modification of the CGPJ was repeated when, in the middle of accusations with the body chaired by Carlos Lesmes for the controversial statements of Vice President Pablo Iglesias, Moncloa insisted that it should "ensure the proper functioning of Justice and contribute in that way to update its governing bodies ». The next day, in his first public intervention as head of Justice, Minister Juan Carlos Campo requested that “the constitutional mandate and the legal system in force in the renewal of the main organs of government of Justice be complied with in order to avoid discrediting the institutions ». Last Friday, the government spokeswoman, María Jesús Montero, announced that Campo would call the Popular Party to negotiate the new composition of the Council and the High Court.

The big question is why does the PSOE insist on the renovations of the CGPJ and the TC? In the first place, because his current parliamentary representation places him in a preferential position in order to acquire more representation in two organs that are key in the judicial world at a time when Sanchez has set out to "dejudicialize" the process .

In the case of the Council, it is the body responsible for appointing the discretionary positions of the judicial leadership while the guarantee court constitutes the ultimate filter through which many laws passed by the Government pass, in addition to being a fundamental piece of the board before acts of disobedience of independence.

In addition, there is the circumstance that at present both bodies are chaired by persons designated at the proposal of the formation of Pablo Casado, of the former PP, a scenario that may vary due to the possibility of renewal.

According to the different sources consulted by EL MUNDO, the popular will wait to see how the legislature passes before sitting down to negotiate any state pact with Sánchez. However, from the conservative formation they point out that if it is Sánchez who calls Casado to address the renovations of the CGPJ or the TC, the president of the PP will attend the appointments whenever it is to "address pacts of State and not against the State". In spite of the double speech that the PP has maintained on the renovations in the last days, in the judicial and vocal dome of the Council of the Judicial Power they assume that «there will be negotiation and renewal» before summer. Especially since there is a constitutional obligation to change its composition and because the PP itself, which is now advocating that the Council be elected by the judges themselves, did not carry out the reform of the Organic Law of the Judiciary when it had an absolute majority to do it being Mariano Rajoy president of the Government.

All the sources consulted - the Executive, the PP and the magistracy - agree that the renewal that is most urgent at the moment is that of the CGPJ presided by magistrate Carlos Lesmes because it has been extending the constitutional mandate for more than a year overcome. The reasons are diverse. On the one hand, because he has so far been making key discretionary appointments such as those of Supreme Court magistrates - a total of ten in the last year. However, the Plenary decided on Thursday to paralyze those designations in a gesture that "forces" the parliamentary groups to begin an immediate negotiation if they do not want key organs of the Spanish jurisdiction to be resented in their daily operation by the political blockade. It is, for example, the case of the Second Chamber of the High Court, composed of 15 magistrates, who due to three retirements, currently has 20% less staff. Manuel Marchena himself explained in October at the CGPJ that in the event that former President Carles Puigdemont was handed over to Spain there would be difficulty in forming the Chamber that has to judge him in the Supreme Court, precisely because of the lack of contactless criminal magistrates prior to the 1-O procedure.

Council sources explain that Lesmes's idea is to spend two months without making appointments while conversations are taking place between socialists and popular but that, in case these do not occur finally or simply do not come to fruition, the governing body of the Judges would have to re-designate magistrates of the judicial leadership to avoid damaging the functioning of the Administration of Justice.

To this data is added another very relevant: the frontal confrontation held this week with the Executive of Pedro Sánchez for the statements made by Vice President Pablo Iglesias on the European "humiliation" to the Spanish courts and the appointment of former Minister Dolores Delgado to be the next state attorney general. For many members of the Judicial Career, the climate of hostility that has emerged between the Government and the Council in a matter of days is "a clear invitation" to renew the governing body of the judges.

One of the possibilities that exists is that, instead of addressing these renewals jointly, a first agreement between PSOE and PP is produced to modify the CGPJ and, later, the renewal of a third of the judges of the Court is agreed Constitutional. The list of members of judicial origin is set up - although since 2018 some magistrate has already submitted his resignation as is the case of the judge of the Supreme José María del Riego - and the formula would pass by agreeing a “consensus president” as well as the names of the eight members of non-judicial origin after the failed renewal of the body on account of the WhatsApp message about Manuel Marchena. In principle, PSOE and PP (with the votes of Navarra Suma) have more than 210 deputies to agree on the renewal alone.

Another key to the success or failure of the negotiations will be whether they will enter into formations such as Vox, which this week unveiled in a surprising way that aims to "actively participate" in the renewal of the CGPJ as the third parliamentary force of the Lower House. Subsequently, since the formation of Santiago Abascal they clarified that they want to open a round of negotiations to change the election system of the said body.

Constitutional Renewal

A different matter is the renewal of the Constitutional, where President Juan José González Rivas , Vice President Encarna Roca and magistrates Fernando Valdés-Ré and Andrés Ollero have fulfilled their mandate. In this case, the position adopted by the Government of Sanchez on the distribution of magistrates will be decisive for the negotiation since the renewal of this third of the court corresponds to the Congress of Deputies.

The sources consulted rule out that there is a situation of blockade provided that the distribution is two magistrates appointed at the proposal of the socialists and two of the popular . In case the PSOE wants to have the capacity to appoint three magistrates - modifying the conservative majority that is now in the court of guarantees of seven conservatives against five progressives - the scenario would be complicated if the PP decides not to accede to that proposal.

In addition, there is the circumstance that the president and vice president of the body should be appointed among the four oldest magistrates who are currently Antonio Narváez , Juan Antonio Xiol , Pedro González-Trevijano and Santiago Martínez Vares . The name that sounds stronger for the presidency is that of Catalan Xiol on the socialist side, and Trevijano, in the popular ranks. In that case, the figure of a consensus president could also be implanted, who, in case of a tie in an adjusted deliberation, would hold a vote of quality.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• PP
• constitutional Court
• PSOE
• Pablo Iglesias
• Pablo Casado
• Vox
• Pedro Sanchez
• Spain
• Congress of Deputies
• General Council of the Judiciary
• Thin pains
• Justice
• Politics

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