Vicente Guilarte, substitute president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), offered this Friday as a mediator between the PSOE and the PP to try to renew the governing body of the judges “this year”, whose mandate has lasted almost five years. years expired. “I can mediate between each other to disentangle the two positions,” he stated. After sharing a table at an informative breakfast in Madrid with the new Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, Guilarte criticized the complaint for prevarication that Sumar filed this morning against him and the conservative members of the council. “If we are all trying to find formulas for pacification and renewal and consensus, then we are not starting well,” said the substitute president, who shortly after officially met with Bolaños at the CGPJ headquarters. The minister has distanced himself from the judicial initiative of Sumar, his partner in the Government of Pedro Sánchez. “It is a decision of a political force that is not the PSOE,” he said.
Guilarte and Bolaños met at a conference at the Real Casino Gran Círculo in Madrid, and that meeting was the prelude to the official meeting between the two, which took place this morning at the headquarters of the Judiciary. This first contact was preceded by statements by Pedro Sánchez, President of the Government, during his tour of Israel and Egypt, in which he flatly ruled out changing the law to force the renewal of the CGPJ without taking the PP into account. something that he already tried once and that the EU made him ugly. The head of Justice has shown himself willing to “make the greatest possible effort”, with “the maximum dialogue and the maximum respect”, to renew the CGPJ and for it to “recover institutional normality” and the “prestige” that “never should have lose”.
The subsequent meeting between Bolaños and Guilarte took place in a friendly tone, but neither of them wanted to make statements at the end of the meeting, although minutes later the two institutions sent notes to the media in which they highlighted that they had agreed on the need to renew the Council. “As soon as possible,” states the ministry’s note, which also refers to the words spoken by Bolaños before the meeting, when he assured that he will dedicate all his efforts to building “bridges of understanding so that the Judiciary can recover institutional normality.” . Guilarte, for his part, has highlighted the need to look for alternative formulas that avoid “the current entrenched situation.”
These formulas that the substitute president advocates since he came to office last July are not possible legal reforms along the lines of those managed by the PSOE two years ago, but rather changes in the discretionary appointment procedures carried out by the body and which, in Guilarte’s opinion, would lead to the CGPJ losing attractiveness for the parties. These appointments are those that are now suspended due to a legal change approved in March 2021 that vetoes these appointments while the CGPJ is, as now, in office.
The council has downplayed the importance of this Friday’s meeting, explaining that it is part of the round of contacts that the minister has initiated after assuming the Justice portfolio and responds to the custom that the first institutional visit made by the new holders of the position is to the headquarters of the Judiciary. Guilarte, approached by the press before the meeting, has expressed confidence that the renewal is possible, and soon. To the question of whether he believes that the composition of the Judiciary can be updated in this legislature, he answered: “Not in this legislature, it is possible to renew it this year”, without clarifying later if he refers to 2023, which has a little more left. of one month, or a maximum period of one year. In his opinion, in this process his role can be that of mediator “between some and others.” “I have the best aspirations for this to be renewed,” he remarked.
What affects the most is what happens closest. So you don’t miss anything, subscribe.
Subscribe
The General Council of the Judiciary is made up of 20 members (12 judges and 8 jurists of recognized prestige) elected by the Congress and the Senate. A three-fifths majority of both Chambers is necessary to proceed with the designation, so the agreement between the PP and the PSOE is unimpeachable.
The president of the CGPJ has stated that the amnesty agreed between the Government and the independentists “has nothing to do with it” and is a matter “completely unrelated to the renewal”, despite the statement against the conservative members. He does not think the same about Sumar’s complaint, about which he first joked (“if they convict me I will have to comply”) and which he later disqualified: “It is a political maneuver that makes no sense. It is a way to continue generating tension when we are trying to lower the tension. I believe that these attitudes are going nowhere and it is the same thing that he has done from the other side, with complaints and pointing fingers. If what we are trying to do is try to find formulas for pacification and renewal and consensus, then we are not starting well, I think. I don’t like”.
Bolaños has also expressed his hope for the agreement, with “the maximum dialogue,” and has preferred not to give his opinion on Sumar’s complaint. He has insisted that he will “try to resolve the issues through dialogue” and “build bridges of understanding with the CGPJ”: “A new stage has opened after the investiture. “We are in a new stage and a new government and a new Minister of Justice,” he stated.
#Guilarte #offers #mediate #PSOE #renew #Judiciary #year