The conservative member Vicente Guilarte will be the next interim president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), after the retirement —this same Wednesday— of the current acting president, Rafael Mozo. Guilarte, who will take office tomorrow as the member of the governing body for the oldest judges, will resign from his job as a lawyer to dedicate himself exclusively to this task.
As announced by the General Council of the Judiciary, Guilarte has informed the ordinary plenary session that is being held this Wednesday that he accepts the position of new interim president of the CGPJ. Guilarte, until now, was not part of the permanent commission that entails an exclusive dedication, so he continued to combine his duties in the CGPJ with his profession as a lawyer.
Several members considered it unacceptable to make the position of president compatible with other functions. Finally, according to legal sources, Guilarte has agreed to resign from his job as a lawyer and university professor.
For his part, Mozo has sent a letter to the staff of the governing body of judges reproaching the political forces that have been unable to renew the CGPJ, which has had its mandate expired for almost five years. In the letter he urges the political forces to renew the body “without excuse” after the general elections next Sunday “immediately”, referring to the European Commission Report on the Rule of Law in the EU.
That this issue becomes a real priority, Mozo has come to ask, since the maintenance of this situation “weakens and erodes” the main institutions of Spanish Justice.
Vicente Guilarte was born in Bilbao in 1953 and has practiced law since 1979. Legal Adviser at the University of Valladolid since 1988, he was a professor of Civil Law at the Burgos Law School and since 1991 he has been a professor of Civil Law at the University of Valladolid.
In addition, he is a member of the Royal Academy of Legislation and Jurisprudence of Valladolid, lawyer-director of the Legal Department of the Association of Property and Commercial Registrars of Spain and member of the Editorial Board of the Abogados Magazine of the General Council of the Spanish Lawyers.
Appointed by the Senate as a member of the General Council of the Judiciary in December 2013, Guilarte is the author of numerous monographs and doctrinal articles in specialized magazines and director of various courses and research projects and doctoral theses.
