The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) will continue with the appointments after the failure of the last plenary, when the lack of agreement forced to postpone about thirty designations in the domes of the main courts. After two weeks of negotiations, the vowels have agreed in extremis that new vacancies are renewed on Wednesday. Among them, they have agreed that Judge Juan Manuel Fernández, who was a member of the CGPJ in the previous mandate at the proposal of the PP, is the new president of the National Court, reported Eldiario.es sources of the government’s governing body.
These same sources confirm that the Pact also includes renewing two of the four rooms of the Supreme Court that have an interim president. For the first (of the civil) Ignacio Sancho will be elected, who was the only candidate. Sancho is affiliated with the conservative Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM). Concepción Urente, of the progressive judges and judges for democracy, will be chosen to preside over the fourth room (of the social). The latter has imposed the other applicant, Juan Molins, linked to the APM. Urente will be the second woman to preside over a Supreme Chamber in its 200 years of history.
At the moment, there is still no agreement for the election of the presidencies of the two most delicate rooms of the high court, the criminal and the contentious-administrative. The progressive members support Ana Ferrer’s candidacies, for the criminal hall, and Pilar Teso, for the contentious-administrative room, which they already proposed unsuccessfully to lead the organ. As then, the conservative directors oppose supporting both applicants and support the other two candidates: Andrés Martínez Arrieta and Pablo Lucas, respectively. There is the circumstance that the latter, whose retirement is near, are occupying the presidencies of both rooms, which leaves “without incentives” to conservatives to reach an agreement.
The pact does include that the Criminal Chamber of the National Court be chaired by veteran Alfonso Guevara, a conservative magistrate who does not miss the opportunity, however, of being unpredictable in his decisions. Guevara already held that acting position after his previous holder, Concepción Espejel, was elected as magistrate of the Constitutional Court.
The renewed CGPJ began its mandate with the challenge of renewing a hundred vacancies in the domes of the main courts. The veto to the appointment of judges as long as the body was not renewed caused that dozens of judicial charges continue to perform their mandates outside the five -year period that the law marks, which prevented other judges from opting for those positions. And also that there were dozens of places occupied by substitutes or directly empty.
The law establishes that a candidate must get the 13 votes that constitute the three fifths of the Plenary to access these places. The current CGPJ is totally divided by half, with ten progressive vowels and ten conservatives, to which the president, Isabel Perelló adds. Therefore, the election requires the agreement of counselors of both blocks.
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