The president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and of the Supreme Court, Isabel Perelló, has officially proposed the conservative magistrate Dimitry Berberoff as vice-president of the high court. Berberoff is a judge of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber and, until this Monday, was the vice-president of the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM), the majority in the race, although he has resigned from the position after his candidacy was made official, according to the CGPJ this Monday. To be successful, Berberoff’s candidacy needs the support of 13 of the 21 members of the plenary (20 members plus the president), although councillors from both sectors agree that the intention is for the future vice-president to be elected unanimously or with a comfortable majority. The plenary session will be held on Wednesday 25 September.
The vice-president of the Supreme Court is elected by the plenary session, but the nomination of the president of the high court and the CGPJ is the responsibility of the president. His function is essentially to substitute the president in the event of his absence and to carry out the functions that she delegates to him, especially technical and organisational tasks of the court. After the election of Perelló, a progressive judge and member of the association Judges and Judges for Democracy (JJPD), the conservatives have demanded that the vice-presidency be held by a judge from this sector and a member of the majority APM, and a week ago they proposed the name of Berberoff. Progressive councillors admitted from the beginning the possibility that the position would fall to a member of this association, although Berberoff’s profile raises suspicions because he is the vice-president of the APM. Progressive sources warn that when they proposed the magistrate Ana Ferrer as president of the CGPJ, the argument of the other block to reject her was that she was a “prominent” member of JJPD. Perelló’s name came up from the conservatives as a JJPD candidate, but with a lower profile, and the progressives accepted her. in extremis to avoid reaching the opening of the judicial year without having appointed a president. Progressive members consulted consider that the resignation to continue as vice president of the APM was a necessary step and, once confirmed, they are willing to vote in favor of Perelló’s proposal.
Although some progressive members consulted are reluctant to vote in favour of Berberoff, they all assume that if the president has taken the step of proposing him it is because she already has the necessary votes. Some of these councillors admitted in recent days that the candidate has an adequate CV for the post, due to his experience in technical positions and his knowledge of European justice. These traits are also highlighted by the CGPJ’s communication office when making the proposal public: with the candidacy of Berberoff, who was a lawyer at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) between 2007 and 2010 and a member of the CGPJ’s Network of Experts in European Union Law (REDUE) and author of numerous publications on this subject, Perelló intends to “strengthen the European dimension of the Supreme Court”. Berberoff, born in 1969, also has a deep knowledge of the functioning of the high court, having been director of its Technical Cabinet between 2014 and 2018 (under the presidency of Carlos Lesmes) and since 2019 he has been an elected member of its Government Chamber.
The plenary session on the 25th is also expected to approve the composition of the five legal commissions (permanent, disciplinary, economic, equality and qualification), to which will be added others not provided for in the Organic Law of the Judiciary (LOPJ), but which have already existed in some previous CGPJ, such as the commission of the judicial school. It is also planned to create a communication commission, which will be negotiated jointly with the election of the position of spokesperson of the CGPJ, another position that did not exist in the body presided by Lesmes but which now wants to be recovered.
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