When Carlos Lesmes

formalizes his resignation this Monday

, 1,406 days will have passed since his term expired and that of the 20 members who elected him.

In these three years, 10 months and six days of extended mandate there has been a time when an agreement could be glimpsed, but the indecision of the leaders of the PSOE and the PP or the electoral calendar have always prevented it.

The resignation of the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) occurs when it is evident that this agreement will no longer come... unless his own resignation favors it.

November 12, 2018.

The PSOE and the PP make public an agreement to renew the CGPJ.

They have agreed on the names of the 20 new members: 11 at the proposal of the PSOE and its partners and nine at the proposal of the PP.

They have also agreed, although this is not disclosed, that the president be the magistrate of the Supreme Court

Manuel Marchena

.

November 19, 2018.

The pact is blown up when an internal message from the popular spokesman in the Senate,

Ignacio Cosidó

, is disclosed, which reflects the enormous politicization of the pact.

"And also controlling the Second Room from behind," was one of the phrases he included.

On the 20th, Marchena renounces that possibility and the PP considers the negotiations broken.

From that moment on, it will require that the 12 members of judicial origin be chosen by the judges themselves.

December 4, 2018.

The members fulfill their five-year term, but there is no prospect of any agreement.

The election of part of the members by vote among judges is unacceptable for the PSOE, which maintains that the legitimacy of the Council must pass through the Cortes Generales.

October 3, 2020.

The Government considers it impossible to achieve a qualified majority in the Council to renew the CGPJ and announces a change in the law so that an absolute majority in the Cortes is sufficient to appoint the new members.

The reform goes in the opposite direction to what the EU demands, and the Commission intervenes.

Pedro Sánchez is forced to rectify and withdraw his plan.

Yes, the other reform of the Government goes ahead: a Council with an expired mandate will not be able to make appointments.

June 13, 2022.

The blockade on appointments is draining the staff of magistrates of the Supreme Court.

But the climax is the renewal of the Constitutional.

In mid-June it was time to replace four of the 12 magistrates, two at the proposal of the CGPJ and two at the proposal of the Government.

But if the CGPJ cannot name its own, neither can those of the Executive enter the court.

This prevents the TC from having a progressive majority, which leads the Government to make a reform of the reform, so that the Council can appoint members of the Constitutional Court.

September 7, 2022.

Lesmes delivers his umpteenth -eighth- opening speech of the judicial year.

He poses a catastrophic situation due to the Government's reforms and the inability of the PSOE and PP to reach an agreement.

And for the first time he implies that if the situation becomes entrenched, he will resign, a drastic measure that he had always rejected.

September 13, 2022.

It is the deadline for the CGPJ to name its two TC magistrates, according to the legal reform that the PP abhors.

But the date passes without agreement.

The conservative block of the Council resists what it considers to be a political handling of the institution and delays the agreement.

September 28, 2022.

The EU Justice Commissioner,

Didier Reynders

, arrives in Spain with the intention of unblocking the situation.

The EU's ability has been demonstrated before and the visit is presented as a last hope.

The illusions disappear when verifying that the Government receives the commissioner with the message that he has aligned himself with the PP.

Reynders meets with everyone, but nothing indicates that things are going to move.

Nothing moves for the renewal of the CGPJ or the Constitutional.

October 9, 2020.

Carlos Lesmes considers any progress impossible and announces that the next day he will resign from his post as president of the CGPJ and of the Supreme Court, the penultimate shock of what is already a constitutional crisis.

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  • General Council of the Judiciary

  • PP

  • PSOE

  • constitutional Court

  • supreme court

  • Pedro Sanchez

  • Senate

  • Manuel Marchena

  • Justice