Alvaro Carvajal Madrid
Madrid
Updated Thursday, February 22, 2024-17:56
Carmen Calvo has overcome the reluctance that her figure provoked in some of
Pedro Sánchez
's parliamentary partners
and has managed to get the
Congress of Deputies
to endorse her "suitability" to serve as president of the
Council of State
, the highest advisory body of the Council. country.
The result of the vote after listening to Calvo's appearance at the Constitutional Commission was
19 votes in favor and 18 against
.
Junts
has finally endorsed the appointment of the former vice president of the Government with its
yes
, despite the fact that in the previous hours the party had hinted that she would take a position against it.
This has allowed the PSOE to save the vote in its favor, although in reality it was not final because it was not binding.
The conclusion is that Calvo, who recently resigned in order to be a candidate to preside over the advisory body, passes the test that judged whether the former vice president of the Government was a jurist of recognized prestige and with sufficient experience to occupy the position of president of the Council of State, once the
Supreme Court
annulled the appointment of
Magdalena Valerio
, also former Sánchez minister, for not meeting those requirements.
Sánchez's party allies in Congress such as
Junts, ERC, EH Bildu or PNV
have avoided taking the floor so as not to delve into their differences with Calvo, while
Sumar
has done so to maintain that he met the requirements but also to express that he maintains political differences with her regarding her conception of trans rights.
"Your endorsement will not allow transphobia to be exercised from the institutions. What's more, as long as we are part of the Government we will ensure that no step back is taken in LGTBI rights," questioned deputy
Esther Gil
.
Thus, the substance of Calvo's examination in Congress has been in the opposition, from where she has received a categorical sentence: "She is not a jurist of recognized prestige."
Both the
PP
,
Vox
and
UPN
have stressed that, despite being a doctor in Constitutional Law, she has not produced any known academic publications since 1997 nor is there any known text that is a reference to her.
"Neither objectivity, nor independence nor a jurist of recognized prestige," stressed PP deputy
Carmen Navarro
, who described Calvo's appointment as "the umpteenth assault on the institutions by Pedro Sánchez" in a "colonization" of the institutions and main positions of the State with people "related to him and his own interests."
As has happened, she has said, in Efe, the CIS or the main embassies.
Calvo's change of position on the
amnesty
has been the cause of a dispute with the PP .
Navarro reminded him of his words on April 27, 2021, when he stated the following on this topic: "When you talk about proposing an amnesty, the only possible response is that this is not feasible in a constitutional and democratic State because it would literally eliminate one of the three powers of the State, which is the Judiciary".
The
popular
deputy has joked about the "supernatural and supervening legal revelation" and the 180-degree turn that both her party and her have now taken "in exchange for seven votes" from Junts.
In her turn to speak and visibly upset, Calvo has reproached the PP for using "the sound of a simple control session" about what she said about a possible amnesty to do a "dressing job" against her in that appearance.
Before all that, Calvo had defended his suitability for the position due to his academic and professional resume and for having a "quite multifaceted" vision for everything he "has had to live through" that allow him to reach the Council of State with the criteria of "independence, objectivity, neutrality and, above all, with the rigor with which the body pronounces itself in legal terms."
From Vox,
Carlos Flores
has been incisive in the data to dismantle that Calvo is a jurist of recognized prestige and has alluded to the conditions surrounding her thesis, her express position as a full professor at the university or her meager academic production.
"I have been a student of jurists of recognized competence, I have met jurists of recognized competence. Mrs. Calvo, you are not a jurist of recognized competence," she said.
Also upset by these considerations, Calvo later responded by referring to the discrimination that women have suffered to gain a foothold in academic positions.