Pedro Sánchez plans to summon Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the Moncloa palace, for the first time in this new mandate, to try to unblock the renewal of a General Council of the Judicial Power (CGPJ) that yesterday already accumulated five years and one day with the mandate expired “It will be soon”, confirmed the spokeswoman for the Government, Pilar Alegría, about the planned first contact between the head of the Executive and the leader of the Popular Party in the legislature that is now starting.
But, beforehand, the Spanish Government trusts that the “pressure” of the European Commission on Feijóo will take effect. “The PP must stand by what Reynders said”, they allege in Moncloa, after the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, was “clear, forceful and conclusive”. “The position of the Government is the same as that of the European Commission”, celebrated the minister spokesperson. And this common position, he stressed, is that the governing body of the judges needs to be renewed in the first place. “And then it will be possible to dialogue”, he assured, about the reform of the organic law of the Judiciary that the PP demands.
“Renewing the CGPJ is not an option, it is a legal obligation”, reiterated Alegría. And he closed the door on the last proposal of the PP, to renew this constitutional body while the legislative reform is launched. “There is no room to interpret what Reynders said, it is not simultaneous, the first thing is to renew the Judiciary”, they insist in Moncloa. “And the PP has no margin, it is at an impasse and it no longer has any excuse to continue blocking the CGPJ”, they say.
In Moncloa they are now waiting to see “what is the attitude” of Feijóo, and if there is any change of strategy after the position expressed by Reynders to tackle without delay the renewal of the organization, before undertaking a debate on a reform of the law that changes the current system of appointing the members of the CGPJ by the Parliament.
“The PP has mounted a crusade in Europe, and the setback has been monumental”, warn Moncloa. And the Government spokeswoman urged the PP not to continue raising “their frustrations” at the European institutions.
The CGPJ met again yesterday – in an extraordinary way, at the request of the conservative wing – to respond to the beginning of the parliamentary processing of the investigative commissions on the attacks of 17-A and the maneuvers of the police politics in operation Catalonia to try to elucidate if there were cases of lawfare. The three conservative members of the permanent commission came up with a tough draft that charged against statements by Sánchez or the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, because they consider that they foster “an unjustified climate of agitation and propaganda against judges and magistrates”.
But after a tense debate, the draft of the conservatives fell thanks to the quality vote of the president of the organization, Vicente Guilarte, and that of the progressive members. In its place, an alternative text was proposed, practically based on the one already issued on November 9 before the PSOE and Junts pact. The novelty is that the new statement adds that the Judiciary will remain “vigilant” in the development of these commissions, “in defense of judicial independence”. Once again, Guilarte’s vote was decisive, as the communique went ahead with the vote of the progressives Roser Bach and Mar Cabrejas.
In response to their truncated expectations, the three conservative members who promoted the appointment issued a private vote in which their draft is collected. And far from reducing the escalation of tension between the judiciary and the Spanish Executive, they asked to “expand” the criticism.
