Friday, March 29

The PP insists in the campaign on the reform of the Judiciary that Congress has already knocked down twice


After more than four years of blocking the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and only six months after unilaterally breaking off the last negotiation when it was about to end, the Popular Party has recovered its proposal for reform of the method of election of the governing body of judges. The conservatives have brought to the plenary session of Congress an initiative that proposes that the 12 judicial members of the CGPJ be directly elected by the judges. It is a reform that the Chamber has already knocked down on two occasions during the mandate of Pablo Casado.

The PP amends itself (several times) in its reform of the Judiciary

Further

The proposal supposes the return to an approach of maximums that the PP had renounced in its last negotiation with the Government and that Alberto Nuñez Feijóo broke in the face of internal criticism and the most conservative media terminals. Also in their two absolute majorities, the conservatives maintained the current system, in which the 12 judicial members are elected by a majority of three fifths of Parliament from a closed list determined by the judges themselves.

During the debate on taking the initiative into consideration, the PP deputy María Jesús Moro has insisted that it is not an “occurrence” of her party, but that the proposal incorporates “elements of broad consensus” in the judicial career and it is “a requirement of the European institutions”. The deputy has ignored, however, that the European Commission has repeatedly requested that the CGPJ first be renewed – whose mandate has expired since December 2018 – and “immediately afterwards” an election system reform be undertaken, as it comes recommending the report on the Rule of Law since 2020. It is the request made just a week ago by the EU Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, on a visit to Spain.

With this movement, Genoa seeks to portray the PSOE in the refusal to allow the judicial career itself to choose its representatives in the CGPJ through a bill that is in the terms that it had renounced in the last negotiation with Moncloa. And she does it, moreover, in the middle of the electoral campaign. The conservatives registered the initiative at the end of December and have reactivated it a few days before the appointment with the polls on Sunday, May 28.

Precisely the “opportunity” of the debate has been criticized by several of the spokespersons who have participated in the debate prior to the vote, scheduled for Thursday. Although from the interventions of most of them it can be deduced that, this time, the PP will not be able to carry out this change in the election system of the CGPJ either. PSOE, Unidas Podemos, ERC, PNV, EH Bildu, Junts, PDeCAT and BNG have already announced their vote against the proposal. Only Ciudadanos have announced their support and Vox has not revealed their vote.

The PSOE deputy Francisco Aranda has described the initiative as “opportunistic” and “misleading” and has disfigured Feijóo’s party for bringing this reform to the Chamber when it has 88 seats and not doing so when it had 180. “In his bill Judicial independence conspicuous by its absence. They want to start the house from the roof. They are prisoners of their fear, they want to control Justice in case one day they end up in it, ”said the socialist parliamentarian from the rostrum, who recalled that the CGPJ has been in office for 1,620 days.

“It is a joke, a blackmail”, the president of the parliamentary group of United We Can, Jaume Asens, has said about the initiative, who has insisted that what “is not acceptable” is that the CGPJ has expired for four years “against the mandate of the ballot box and the Constitution”. Faced with this scenario, Asens has asked the PSOE to recover the initiative that reduced the majority necessary to elect the members in the second round and that the Socialists withdrew due to the misgivings that it aroused in the EU and the criticism of the associations. judicial. A similar claim has been made by EH Bildu deputy Jon Iñárritu, who recalled that there are seven months left for the general elections and that “it would be time to activate the majority” that exists in Congress to address the renewal.

A model that favors the judicial right

The system of direct election by the judges of the 12 judicial members that the PP demands again is the one that was in force until 1985. With these rules of the game, the candidacy of the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM) — which was the only one constituted up to that moment in the judicial sphere— won the elections to the CGPJ in 1980 and took over all those positions despite the fact that there were open lists. In addition to the APM, the Independent Judicial Candidacy and the Independent Candidacy of Labor Magistrates were presented, according to The country.

The parliamentary election of the members of the CGPJ was established in 1985, when Felipe González’s PSOE governed with an absolute majority. The conservative composition of the judicial career and the will of the Socialists for the parliamentary majority to have a certain reflection in the judicial structure weighed in this decision. It is the model defended by the Government of Pedro Sánchez, understanding that it “guarantees that the powers of the State emanate from the citizenry” while respecting the participation of the judges, who collaborate in the pre-selection.

The direct election by the members of the judicial career is the system that governs the election of the government chambers of the Supreme Court, the National Court and the 17 autonomous superior courts and where the conservative associations are in the majority. According to data compiled by elDiario.es, the Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM) and the Francisco de Vitoria have 75% of the positions in the government chambers although they only represent 41% of the magistrates.



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