Balaguer refuses to withdraw his candidacy and will face Conde-Pumpido for the presidency of the TC

• The gossip of the Salesas 24 hours to elect the president of the TC, after the toughest fight and with the unknown of the Segoviano vote

• Justice González Trevijano says goodbye to the presidency of the Constitutional: "Before the Magna Carta, popular sovereignties are not opposable"

The struggle for the presidency of the Constitutional Court between the former State Attorney General

and the professor

, far from fading away, will remain alive until the end.

Both magistrates are aware that the presidency currently depends on a single vote and, in the final stretch of this internal battle waged in recent months, neither will give up their efforts to lead the court of constitutional guarantees.

Faced with the majority support -it remains to be seen whether it is total- that Conde-Pumpido currently has from magistrates with a progressive sensibility, Balaguer has the backing of conservatives who consider that a TC under his presidency "would be more bearable than with Cándido al front of the organ.

has learned

, the professor of Constitutional Law has commented to her closest friends in the last few hours that she is not going to withdraw her candidacy even if her groupmates in the TC ask her to.

On the other hand, currently, the key to tipping the balance in favor of one or the other candidate is held by magistrate

, former president of the Labor Chamber of the Supreme Court, whose vote is the great unknown.

With a progressive profile, Segoviano is characterized by being a loose verse.

"She will vote for whoever she wants without any directive," explain those who have known her for many years.

María Luisa Segoviano took office yesterday in the Constitutional Court, together with magistrates

(also unanimously appointed by the General Council of the Judiciary) and magistrates

and

, appointed by the Government.

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Analysis.

The swan song of the TC robes

• Drafting: JORGE BUSTOS

The swan song of the TC robes

Precisely, due to these latest additions, the magistrates of the progressive sector of the High Court requested the acting president of the body, Judge

, that instead of calling the plenary this Tuesday -as initially planned-, the meeting be held on Wednesday with the aim of gaining time and drawing up a strategy with the new members of the guarantee court.

Enríquez accepted the request and set the plenary session for this Wednesday at 1:00 p.m.

For their part, the progressives plan to meet this Tuesday morning to try to establish a common strategy before the aforementioned plenary session.

At the meeting, Conde-Pumpido will explain his presidency project to the new magistrates.

Currently, the former State Attorney General has the unconditional support of magistrates

and

with whom he has designed a "collective project" for the future of the Constitutional Court in which the main objective is "to put the court at day".

Organ modernization

Likewise, legal sources consulted by EL MUNDO explain that the designed program also contemplates the modernization of the body with the adoption of novel measures such as holding public hearings or giving priority to the resolution of amparo appeals that raise issues on which there is no jurisprudence for affecting, for example, new technologies or artificial intelligence.

Conde-Pumpido -former magistrate of the Supreme Court and with experience in team management when he headed the State Attorney General's Office at the time of the

government - has the support of Campo and Díez, for which he would only need Segoviano's vote to win the presidency.

The sources consulted consider that it is highly unlikely that this meeting of the progressive sector will end with a single candidacy for the presidency since Balaguer has transmitted to his closest circle that "at this point" he does not intend to retire.

The magistrate has explained that once she has decided to "take a step forward" to present herself as a candidate for the presidency "it would be dishonest" for her not to try now.

However, the magistrate plans to attend the meeting of the members of the progressive group after magistrate Ramón Sáez asked her yesterday to attend the meeting.

Balaguer agreed to go but she anticipated that no one will convince her not to run for president.

Within the court, Balaguer's personality arouses less rejection than that of the former attorney general among the minority conservative sector.

In addition, in favor of the professor, she plays that her marked feminist ideology can serve to attract Segoviano, a judge who throughout her professional life has been breaking successive glass ceilings.

It is the trick that is kept in front of Conde-Pumpido.

little precedent

Meanwhile, the members of the conservative group of the TC wait to see the result of the meeting of their colleagues to study how to face the plenary session on Wednesday.

In the crowds after the inauguration ceremony, which was attended by a large representation of the judiciary, the battle for the presidency was the main talk.

And it is that the current situation, where two magistrates from the same ideological group are fighting for the presidency, has few precedents in the history of the TC.

In fact, we have to go back to 1992, when the progressives

and

, both appointed by the

, staged a similar situation.

On that occasion, Rodríguez-Piñero ended up prevailing after two tied votes in a heart-stopping plenary session due to the mere fact of being the oldest magistrate of the two.

The Organic Law establishes that the full court elects its president from among its members by secret ballot, requiring an absolute majority on the first ballot and a simple majority on the second ballot.

In the event of a tie, a final vote will be held and if this is repeated, the person with the greatest seniority in the position will be proposed and, in the case of equality, the person with the greatest age.

The new Constitutional is made up of seven members of the considered progressive sector and four magistrates of the so-called conservative sector.

The position left by Professor

- who took leave last July due to illness - and to which the outgoing president,

, referred yesterday, is vacant , recalling that "the Constitutional Court remains incomplete."

Trevijano launched a "forced petition to political operators" to proceed to fill this vacancy "as soon as possible."

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