10 days after the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) completes five years of the expired mandate, the Government has begun to shake the tree. And in that effort he has found an ally, the substitute president of the governing body of the judges, Vicente Guilarte, who this Friday, used that same expression, “shake the tree,” to express that all his efforts are focused on achieving renewal and even aspires to achieve it in the remainder of the year. How this will be achieved is not clear because the renewal still requires an agreement with the PP, which this Friday invoked references to the lawfare contained in the PSOE agreement with Junts to remove the possibility of an agreement with the socialists.
Friday morning began with Guilarte and the new Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, sitting shoulder to shoulder at a breakfast briefing at the Real Casino Gran Círculo in Madrid. By then, among the attendees, the majority linked to the justice sector, there were already two topics of conversation: the words spoken by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, on Thursday night in Israel, with which he ruled out changing the parliamentary majorities to renew the Judiciary and expressed confidence in reaching an agreement with the PP; and the complaint for prevarication announced by Sumar against the 10 conservative members of the CGPJ, including the substitute president.
Guilarte, approached by the media, tried to downplay the importance of the complaint — “if they condemn me I will have to comply,” he stated — but he was upset with the PSOE government partner because, he said, this movement goes in the opposite direction. to what he intends, which is to reduce tension to promote renewal. “I think 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 distanced himself from the initiative of his government partners. “It is a decision that has been made by a political force” that “is not the PSOE,” he assured, and insisted that his objective is to “build bridges of understanding with the CGPJ.”
After breakfast, Guilarte and Bolaños said goodbye to meet again minutes later. This time, at the CGPJ headquarters, where they had met for their first official meeting. Both parties wanted to frame the meeting within the round of contacts that the minister has initiated after assuming the Justice portfolio and explained that it responds to the custom that the first institutional visit made by the new holders of the position is to the headquarters of Power. Judicial. But no one is unaware that on this day several circumstances coincided that magnified the focus on this event. “A new stage has opened after the investiture. We are in a new stage and a new Government and a new Minister of Justice,” Bolaños summarized to the media at the exit of the Real Casino. After months of absolute paralysis, these words, together with those spoken by Sánchez in Israel, represent even the slightest indication that something may move.
The 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 both institutions sent notes to the media in which they highlight that they have agreed on the need to renew the Council. “As soon as possible,” states the ministry’s statement, 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, 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.
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Although the renewal of the body is only a matter, in principle, of the PSOE and the PP (and other groups that may join), the alternate president of the body has offered to act as a mediator. Guilarte was proposed in 2013 as a member of the PP, but he does not belong to the hard core of conservative members who a year ago conspired to block the renewal of the Constitutional Court or who have led successive initiatives to express their criticism of the Sánchez Government. The current alternate president has been advocating for years to renew the body and make changes that avoid future blockages, and he insisted on this in the meeting with Bolaños.
In just over a week, on December 4, an unusual anniversary will occur: the CGPJ will celebrate five years with its expired mandate, an extension that implies that the members double the term of office for which they were elected (five years). . The new head of Justice already said the day he took office that renewing the governing body of the judges was not an “option”, but an “obligation”. Sánchez had expressed himself along the same lines on Thursday night, when he said that they would try again to reach an agreement with the PP, after Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party pulled out of an agreement a year ago that was already considered closed. . If this is not achieved this time either, the socialists will look for solutions, but they rule out recovering the legal reform that they proposed three years ago to change the parliamentary majorities necessary to renew and precipitate the renewal without counting on the PP.
The popular ones, for the moment, are not reaching out. Asked about the words of the President of the Government, the popular parliamentary spokesperson, Cuca Gamarra, called on the socialists to “abandon all those investigation commissions” agreed upon with the Catalan independence parties and which, according to Gamarra, “only have one objective: to fulfill the demands of its partners.” “The first thing they have to do is respect the separation of powers and of course respect the independence of the Judiciary,” Gamarra said.
The conservative members of the CGPJ have once again placed themselves in this line of harsh criticism of the Government, who have sent a letter to several European institutions, including the Commissioner of Justice, Didier Reynders, in response to the complaint for prevarication presented by Sumar. The letter, sent by counselor José María Macías, one of the most active members of the hard core of the body, defines the initiative of Yolanda Díaz’s group as an attempt at “personal and moral annihilation” of the affected members and maintains that there is a campaign of “discreditation and personal lynching” to prevent these members from exercising their function of protecting the independence of the courts.
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