The general elections of 23-J arrive with an unprecedented judicial deadlock and justice at a minimum, with strikes for months by civil servants and lawyers in the administration of justice and even an attempt by the judicial career. The start of the electoral campaign has buried this conflict which is expected to revive at the return of the summer.
The warnings from Europe, the resignation of the President of the Judiciary, Carlos Lesmes, in the face of the deadlock situation, the insistence of the members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to renew their position after five years in office or the communiques of the judicial associations have had no effect.
During this time, the PSOE and the PP have been unable to reach an agreement, based on electoral calculations. The PP has used justice to wear down the Government of Pedro Sánchez. First Pablo Casado and then Alberto Núñez Feijóo have refused to sign an agreement to renew the twenty members of the body of judges, despite the fact that it is a constitutional mandate, and all this in the face of the internal argument that if signed it would create a breeding ground that would favor Vox in the face of the wear and tear of agreeing with Sanchism.
Already before the municipal and regional elections on May 28, within the CGPJ it was taken for granted that the negotiations would not resume. There was very little hope that it would happen before the general elections and after the announcement of the electoral advance any option was dissipated.
For a long time, within the two parties, any option to unblock the body of judges was considered dead. The leader of the PP has stuck to his intention to change the law so that the twelve members who come from the judicial career are elected by the judges and not by the Parliament, despite the fact that the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, has warned on several occasions that it is first necessary to renew the body and then to reform its appointment system. What is clear, according to Council sources, is that “justice does not give votes” and, for this reason, the blockade remains.
In the electoral campaign, nothing related to the problems of justice has come to light, beyond the effects that the law of only yes is yes has had with more than a thousand reductions in sentences for sexual abusers and rapists due to a modification of the ranges of penalties in the criminal types. In addition, during these days the replacement of the progressive Rafael Mozo, as president of the CGPJ who has retired, by the conservative member Vicente Guilarte has taken place.
The two main parties, the PSOE and the PP, remain fixed in their ideas. The socialists defend the current model, to be the most democratic and to be endorsed by the Constitutional Court and consecrated by a State pact. “We will continue to demand the immediate renewal of the CGPJ with the current system of double legitimation in its election.”
The PP continues to accuse the Government of “political interference” and insists in its program on the fact that the way to recover the prestige of justice “after the attacks suffered during the last legislature” is to modify the election system for the members of the Council so that it is the judges and magistrates who elect the twelve members of judicial origin. “We will repeal the reform that today prevents its normal operation”. According to sources at the High Court, this argument, defended by the association of conservative judges, does the work of the judiciary a disservice because it makes Europe believe that there is no judicial independence in Spain, at a delicate moment when the European courts must decide how the Supreme Court acted with the leaders of the process.
If the PP governs after 23-J, it will need the support of Vox to push through the law, which also defends the modification of the election system to avoid “interference by politicized parties or associations”, in addition to betting on giving the body more budgetary autonomy. Even if they agreed and the reform went ahead, the Council calculates that the renewal would not take place before a year, between when the law is changed and the new system is introduced, for a body that has been in office since December 2018.
In the opposite case, if Sánchez revalidated the power, he would be seen with a partner in government, Sumar, who is betting on a reform so that the members cease automatically when their mandate expires. Although they are betting on the current model, Yolanda Díaz’s party wants to modify the criteria for appointing members of the judicial shift by the two chambers “to fully respect the will of the endorsers or proposing associations, at least in relation to ten of them (half of the twenty members of the body), with mechanisms that guarantee the proportional presence of all sensitivities”.
The body does not anticipate that there will be a short-term solution, which will lead to the perpetuation of the blockade while the Council is prevented from making appointments to the Supreme Court, which sees its ability to issue judgments further diminished.
