The advance of the general elections announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, after the dissolution of the regional and municipal elections, has generated anxiety within the judiciary, a fact that has further damaged its weakened health at a time when officials , lawyers and judges are at war over salary issues and the judicial leadership is on the verge of collapse due to the blockade of the CGPJ.
On the one hand, there are the appeals presented to the Constitutional Court by the PP and Vox against the reform of the organic law of the Judiciary (LOPJ), which limited the functions of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The new date of the elections for July 23 could delay its resolution. The body is studying whether it gives time so that it can be studied in the two plenary sessions that are left in the month of June. If not, the court would have to wait for the elections to take a decision.
The proposed law presented by the PSOE and Unides Podemos and approved in April 2021 intended that the body of judges, with a conservative majority, could not continue making appointments to the judicial top while the PP maintained the blockade of the Council, which it already does four and a half years that the mandate has been extended.
The president of the Constitucional, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, had proposed to bring this matter to the plenary as soon as possible, as part of his plan to move forward with the most urgent issues once he assumed the presidency of the constitutional body in January . The last forecast was to be able to bring the report of magistrate MarÃa Luisa Balaguer, on Vox’s appeal, to this week’s plenary session, right after the regional elections.
The judge’s text is already finished and, according to sources in the body, it is intended to reject the appeal and therefore defend the constitutionality of the reform. According to these same sources, for the speaker, the only possible mark of unconstitutionality of the proposal promoted by the two parties that make up the Government coalition was the impossibility of appointing TC magistrates. Unlike the other appointments of the judicial leadership, those of the TC are established in the Constitution. However, the proponents already corrected this part of the text with a counter-reform that was approved in July 2022.
The court is waiting for César Tolosa to finish his presentation on the Popular Party’s appeal to try to bring the two texts to the floor simultaneously, as a result of the forecast that they will go in different directions.
Added to this disjunction is the fact that Rafael Mozo, current acting president of the CGPJ, replacing Carlos Lesmes after his resignation, retires on July 19. A third president while the body is in office further aggravates the situation and the image of the judiciary, especially on a European scale. Within the Council they are aware that the situation can still be prolonged for at least a year.
In the event that there is an electoral landslide, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has already advanced his intention to change the law so that it is the judges and not the Parliament who elect the twelve – out of a total of 20 – members of the nomination judicial This means that the renewal of the organ could be postponed even more. The blocking of the CGPJ and the few expectations that the TC will allow appointments to be made again have a direct implication in the judicial leadership, mainly in the Supreme Court, which already has around 25% of vacancies.
And finally, the electoral advance takes place in the middle of a strike by Justice officials, which has been added to the one started by the lawyers of the administration of justice and to which the judges also threatened to join . The latter signed in extremis an agreement with the department led by Pilar Llop for a salary increase, although the advance announced by Pedro Sánchez was made before it was officially approved. Officials are now trying to force the Ministry of Justice to sign a deal, but time is running out. This strike, which began on May 22, has caused, according to union data, more than one million lawsuits and forty million suspended performances.
