The progressive magistrate of the Constitutional Court (TC) Juan Carlos Campo has decided to abstain from an appeal for protection presented by an individual in relation to the future amnesty law to safeguard the “impartiality” of the TC, after reports on pardons those convicted by the process that he signed when he was Minister of Justice reflected that said measure was “unconstitutional.”
This has been communicated to the president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido. This appeal for protection is still in a preliminary phase of correcting the procedural defects noted in the presentation of the lawsuit and therefore it is not the time to resolve Campo’s departure in everything that has to do with the future amnesty law.
The reason for his abstention is that as Minister of Justice he prepared the reports on the pardons of the nine convicted of sedition, among them the former vice president of the Generalitat Oriol Junqueras.
In those documents, Campo stated that, “unlike the amnesty, clearly unconstitutional, that is demanded by some pro-independence sectors, the pardon does not make the crime disappear.”
After approving the pardons, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, dismissed Campo, who for a few months returned to his position as a judge of the National Court, to later be rescued again and elected a judge of the Constitutional Court. Campo is part of the majority progressive bloc of the plenary session of the guarantee body.
On the sidelines, the Constitutional Court has received another appeal for protection from another individual, also for the future amnesty, where challenges are already being raised against Campo, Laura Díez and the president of the court, Cándido Conde-Pumpido.
The challenges against Campo and Díez on issues related to the current Government have been recurrent since they were the two magistrates who joined the TC at the proposal of the Executive, the first after being Minister of Justice and the second after serving as a senior official of Moncloa.
Sources close to Campo maintain that he had already been studying for some time whether to withdraw from the amnesty issue when it came to court, given his involvement in the matter when he was Minister of Justice.
Another thing will be what Conde-Pumpido does, who in 2021 abstained from all matters related to the process after the independence leaders challenged him, believing that he was neither “neutral” nor “impartial” due to a conference held in November 2017. where he gave his opinion on the matter.
Then, he expressed his “concern” about the events that were taking place in Catalonia and described them as “an attempt to subvert the social and democratic State of Law by fraudulently using the flag of democracy itself.”
In the event that both had to abstain, the plenary session would be left with five progressives versus four conservatives to debate the constitutionality of the amnesty law, once it is approved and comes into force.
The sources consulted clarify that neither of the two unconstitutionality appeals presented for the future amnesty have any progress because there is still no approved law whose effects could have affected the rights of a private citizen. However, the decisions adopted by the TC regarding Campo’s abstention and the challenges launched will serve to configure the Plenary Session that must decide on the measure of grace.
