The Plenary Session of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has unanimously agreed today to urge the Congress and the Senate to refrain from summoning judges and magistrates to testify before the investigative commissions constituted within them about facts that they have learned in the actions that are the object of its jurisdictional activity.
The body warns that if, despite this, they are summoned, the Permanent Commission will deny authorization for them to appear. This has just been agreed by all the members following the warnings from Junts, ERC and Sumar that they should go to the commissions to uncover an alleged ‘lawfare’, that is, a judicial persecution of political leaders.
The agreement explains that judges are “fully subject to the Constitution and the laws” and subject to disciplinary and criminal liability when they incur in cases classified as infractions or crimes, respectively.
“Now, the requirement of the first corresponds exclusively to this Council by mandate of article 122 of the Constitution, and the second, to the judicial bodies served by ‘judges and magistrates who are members of the judicial power, independent, immovable, responsible and subject only to the rule of law,'” the text states.
As the CGPJ warns, these conditions are not met by the members of the parliamentary investigation commissions, “since, after all, their representative function is carried out on a strictly political level and is oriented and limited, as far as it matters here, to the demand for responsibilities of that nature”.
For this reason, the Council agrees that in the event that judges are called on matters in which they have participated, even under the warning that they could incur criminal liability if they did not appear, “they will not have the obligation to attend to the request that is made to them.” sends for this purpose, they should not appear in them and the CGPJ will not authorize service commissions for this reason either.
In parallel, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, has once again extended his hand to the president of the CGPJ, Vicente Guilarte: “You can count on me.” In this way, he responds to the claim made yesterday by the president of the body of judges to the Government so that they do not disappoint the judges in their support against the accusations of ‘lawfare’ by the pro-independence parties.
Since last week, Bolaños has been carrying out a public defense exercise for judges and prosecutors in the face of accusations and insults. The investiture agreement that the PSOE made with Junts raised suspicions in the judiciary regarding the governing party. However, the head of Justice is trying to dispel these suspicions with his public statements.
Today, during his speech at the Justice Commission of the Congress of Deputies, Bolaños warned that whoever commits “any interference or disqualification” in the judges or attempts to do so will be “in front of him.”
Junts and ERC are insisting on their willingness to summon judges to investigative commissions to uncover cases of judicial persecution against political leaders for their ideology and have warned that failure to do so could lead to a crime.
The Government has shown its face on this matter by placing itself without hesitation at the side of the judges. The president himself, Pedro Sánchez, has made it clear that judges should not testify in investigative commissions about matters they have dealt with. Today, the plenary session of the CGPJ has unanimously agreed to urge the Congress and Senate to refrain from summoning judges to investigative commissions.
The precedents that have existed so far make it clear that judges neither can nor should speak about judicial cases in which they have participated because doing so could even incur a serious sanction as stated in the Organic Law of the Judiciary (LOPJ).
In the Commission, the spokesperson for Sumar, Enrique Santiago, government partners with the PSOE, has placed himself on the side of the independentistas. “No one can be above appearing in investigative commissions,” he said. The deputy has clarified that there is a difference between going to the commission and the obligation to declare. In his opinion, “no person can fail to comply with the requirements,” based on article 76 of the Constitution,
He concluded by issuing a warning to the judges: article 502 of the Penal Code, which establishes that “those who, having been legally required and under warning, fail to compare before an investigative commission of the Cortes Generales or a Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Community, will be punished as criminals of the crime of disobedience.”
In the midst of this situation of unrest, Bolaños meets with the president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Marín Castán, a meeting that was suspended last week after the words of the Junts spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras.
Both the Plenary Session of the Council and the minister himself have once again demanded an urgent renewal of the body of judges. In the body’s agreement, a mention is made of putting an end to “the constitutional anomaly in which we find ourselves, the duration of which has far exceeded the limit of what is tolerable.”
Both the minister and the spokesperson for Justice, Francisco Aranda, have directly blamed the PP for the blockage in the renewal of the Council, which has now been in office for five years, and have trusted that in tomorrow’s meeting between Sánchez and the leader of the popular , Alberto Núñez Feijóo, an agreement is reached to end the blockade. “Hopefully tomorrow the rule of law will win the jackpot,” Bolaños said, winking at the Christmas lottery draw that will be held this Friday coinciding with the meeting.
According to Bolaños, a “triple abnormality” is occurring, because it is “absolutely unconstitutional”; It is a “European abnormality”, because the EU demands urgent renewal; and “it is also an abnormality that is already having effects on the ordinary functioning of the justice service.”
