The Constitutional Court on Tuesday accepted the request of former minister and now magistrate Juan Carlos Campo to abstain from all deliberations on the amnesty law, according to sources from the guarantee body. It did so, however, by a narrow margin – 6 votes in favour and 5 against – and after an intense debate, which already anticipates the tough discussion on the cross-recusals of several magistrates that is coming up in October. The same decision – to remove Campo from matters relating to the amnesty – was taken by the Constitutional Court only two weeks ago unanimously, but on this occasion the court was split in two. The magistrates of the conservative sector have cited a procedural issue: they have demanded that three other magistrates whose recusals will be debated later should not be present in the vote. But the progressive bloc has refused to do so.
The plenary session on the 11th addressed Campo’s abstention in the debates on the question of unconstitutionality presented by the Supreme Court against the amnesty law. Now what has been agreed is to remove the former minister from the 16 appeals of unconstitutionality presented by parliaments and autonomous communities and by the PP, as well as from the three remaining questions of unconstitutionality, all from the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC). Campo was Minister of Justice in the Government of Pedro Sánchez and from that position he openly expressed himself in 2021 against a hypothetical amnesty law, which would be, he said then, “clearly unconstitutional.”
Following the decision on Campo’s abstention, the Constitutional Court will have to debate in October the challenges presented against three other judges of the court: the president, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, and the judge Laura Díez (both from the progressive sector) and the judge José María Macías (from the conservative sector). The first two have been challenged by the PP; the third by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the State Attorney’s Office and the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont.
According to sources at the court, conservative judges Enrique Arnaldo, José María Macías and Concepción Espejel have announced that they will present a dissenting opinion (disagreeing with the decision taken).
The deliberation on the amnesty law has been preceded by a flood of cross-challenges. And the conservative sector has argued that all those challenged should be excluded from this prior debate on the challenges, which would leave the court in a draw (4 to 4) to resolve each of the challenges, although the tie-breaking vote would be held by the vice-president, Inmaculada Montalbán, acting as president; the progressive bloc replies that the challenged person in question should only withdraw from his own vote but participate in those that affect his colleagues. Sources from this sector maintain that the judges of the conservative bloc only want the challenge of José María Macías to be rejected.
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