The deputy secretary of Institutional Action of the Popular Party, Esteban González Pons, has revealed that Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo agreed not to touch the reform of the crime of sedition. The person in charge of negotiating the CGPJ by the popular party has assured, in statements to Onda Cero, that the two leaders agreed on it at the first meeting in La Moncloa to renew the judiciary, where they also established that magistrates related to ERC in the Constitutional Court.
“During the entire negotiation, we were clear that I was not going to see ERC magistrates and that the crime of sedition would not be touched upon,” the popular leader highlighted. The conservatives had this conviction because of the pact they reached, according to what they said, with the socialists in that first meeting where González Pons himself and the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, were also present -the two negotiators of the PP and the PSOE.
Although the positions were quite close in recent days, “things began to get complicated” when it appeared in the media that the executive intended to reduce the penalties for sedition. The former MEP has revealed that Bolaños “guaranteed” him on Thursday that this information was “author journalism and not news”, but shortly after Sánchez “assured that there would be reform” in a call with Feijóo.
This led to the suspension of the negotiation. Even so, Esteban González Pons has clarified that “it was not yet closed” and that there were some outstanding points to be finalized and that Sánchez and Feijóo had to discuss. According to the popular, “a new model of the CGPJ” had yet to be agreed upon, where the PP’s position remains firm that “the judges are chosen by the judges.” In this sense, González Pons has insisted that the red line in the negotiation was that it was necessary to “renovate but also reform”, in order to comply with European demands.
Another of the pending fringes was that the “president gave guarantees that there were not going to be ERC magistrates” in the Constitutional Court. An agreement was also yet to be finalized by which the presidencies of the CGPJ and the TC would be chosen by the magistrates themselves and that therefore the possible candidates would be left out of the political negotiation. However, according to Pons, the 20 names to enter the highest judicial body were already agreed upon.
Esteban González Pons has also revealed that there were differences within the Government over the negotiations in relation to the judge ministers (Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Margarita Robles and Pilar Llop), an article affects their return to the judiciary once they leave the ministries . These differences caused, according to Pons, a renegotiation of this section. The popular has assured that “division” was also generated in the executive after Victoria Rosell, magistrate proposed by United We Can, was not among the government candidates.
