The president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Vicente Guilarte, has a departure date. This member of the judges’ body already warned when he was elected acting president based on seniority that he was not going to accept the position ‘sine die’ but would give a period for the PP and PSOE to agree to end the blockade of the institution that has been perpetuated for more than five years.
The deadline that has been given is the “prudential” one to allow the interlocutors of both parties, Félix Bolaños and Esteban González Pons, to seek an agreement to renew the CGPJ, in office since December 2018 due to the lack of agreement between both parties. .
That prudential date is getting closer and closer. Guilarte assumed the presidency in July, coinciding with the general elections held on July 23. This professor and lawyer by profession gave a deadline until the Government was formed. He has shown his full willingness to both parties to help with that renewal but the situation remains unresolved.
The PP refuses to renew with the current law and the PSOE demands that the law be applied and once the new Council is formed, it does not rule out that they can sit down and talk about the reform of the system of electing the members of the body. Basically, the PP wants the judicial career to elect the members, leaving Parliament aside.
But during these five years of blockade, this has not been the only argument of the PP to carry out the renewal of the CGPJ, which currently has a conservative majority. The formation of the previous Government with Podemos, the position of the party then led by Pablo Iglesias on the monarchy or the pardons for the independence leaders were arguments that the ‘popular’ used to not renew the Council.
After years with the situation entrenched, PP and PSOE have given themselves a new opportunity using the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, as an intermediary to reach an agreement. However, the European president has given a period of two months to find a solution. If not, he will turn away again. In the two meetings that have already been held, both parties remain immobile in their same positions. The PP demands that there first be a modification in the election system so that the new members can be chosen by the judges themselves, while the PSOE urges to renew with the current system and then move on to study a possible reform.
Despite the skepticism prevailing in the judiciary regarding a possible agreement, Guilarte hoped today during his speech at the Nueva Economía Fórum that it will come to fruition and will not force him to resign, just as Carlos Lesmes already did in an unsuccessful attempt to force the renewal.
But if it doesn’t happen “I would leave discreetly.” “It would be a cabin boy leaving the ship. There are captains more qualified than me. “I don’t want to be the cabin boy of something that I don’t control,” snapped the current president.
Guilarte’s resignation would cause a new institutional crisis, after the departure of Lesmes and Rafael Mozo, the first acting substitute who had to leave due to retirement. In the case of the current president, since he is not a member of the judicial career, he does not have a retirement date although he has already made it clear on several occasions that he accepted the acting presidency for a limited time and only with the purpose of achieving a renewal.
Guilarte, in addition to asking for the renewal, also demanded that it “not inherit the same deficiencies” as the previous one. “It would be dangerous if ten or ten militants emerged from these negotiations and began to exchange cards,” he concluded.
