The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, confirmed this Tuesday that his party will promote “in the coming weeks” a vote in the Senate to try to fill the only vacancy left in the Constitutional Court. That position has been vacant since July 2022, when the conservative magistrate Alfredo Montoya Melgar resigned due to illness, and it is up to the Upper House to appoint the replacement. The PP has an absolute majority in the Senate, although a three-fifths majority is needed to carry out the appointment. During a radio interview on Cadena Cope, Feijóo accused the PSOE and its partners of stopping the replacement of that magistrate in the last legislature, when the socialists and their partners had a majority in the upper house.
“In the previous legislature we were unable to get the Board to include it on the agenda. What a fraud it is to maintain the Constitutional Court with 11 members and deny that the party to which the magistrate’s proposal corresponds [número] 12 can do it,” said the head of the opposition, blaming this situation on “the same Government that talks about that if the PP doesn’t want to renew, I don’t know what.” [en referencia al Consejo General del Poder Judicial]”. The process of replacing Montoya, however, was promoted by the previous president of the Senate, the socialist Ander Gil, although it was suspended due to the calling of the general elections on June 23 and the subsequent dissolution of the Cortes.
The Upper House appoints four Constitutional magistrates, in accordance with article 159.1 of the Fundamental Law, the organic law that regulates the court of guarantees and articles 184 and 196 of the Senate Regulations. In the process of electing these magistrates, the autonomous communities come into play, since each regional Parliament can present up to two candidates. This proposal from the territories goes to the Appointments Commission of the Upper House and is then definitively voted on in the plenary session of the Senate. In practice, there is usually a prior agreement between political parties to maintain the balance of forces, parliamentary sources explain.
In said vote, the candidate must achieve a three-fifths majority to be appointed. The PP has had an absolute majority in the Senate since 23-J, but it does not reach the necessary three-fifths. He can, however, force the matter to be submitted to plenary debate, as he has a majority on the Board. In the PSOE there is still no position on how they will face this negotiation. “We haven’t even started to look at it yet. That has to be studied,” explain sources from the socialist parliamentary group in the upper house. At a press conference in the Senate, the PSOE spokesperson, Juan Espadas, referred this Tuesday to the vacancy in the Constitutional Court. “This slope. In the last legislature the decision was not made. I hope that this legislature also clears up these unknowns,” Espadas said in this regard.
Currently, the Constitutional Court has a majority of seven progressive magistrates compared to four conservatives. Therefore, in the event that Montoya were replaced by another magistrate from the PP quota, the margin of the progressive majority would narrow: 7 to 5. This dance of numbers could have consequences, since there are, for example, two progressive magistrates who The following may be challenged to decide on the future amnesty law: former Minister Juan Carlos Campo – who, in fact, has already asked to withdraw from this matter – and Judge Laura Díez, who was also part of Pedro Sánchez’s Government. If both were challenged, there would be a five-way tie between progressives and conservatives, which only the president of the court, the progressive Cándido Conde-Pumpido, could break with his casting vote.
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In the last legislature, the president of the Senate, the socialist Ander Gil, asked the regional parliaments up to five times to present their candidates to fill the vacancy in the Constitutional Parliament. There were Chambers with a popular majority that did not contribute any names. The last procedure related to this matter dates back to June 20, when Gil extended the deadline for submitting candidatures, one month before the Cortes were dissolved. The names registered during the last legislature are valid now, but the PP can once again request new candidacies, something that could benefit the popular ones because they now govern in several autonomies in which the PSOE governed until last May.
On the other hand, the Senate Board approved this Tuesday to ask the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) – whose mandate has expired for five years – a report on the future amnesty law. A statement that was discarded in the Congress of Deputies when the initiative was processed as a bill and, therefore, the CGPJ report was not mandatory.
The socialist parliamentary group will present a motion in the next plenary session of the Senate to “urge the PP to fulfill its constitutional obligation and accelerate the renewal of the CGPJ.” At the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the Government rejected the popular party’s latest proposal: to renew the composition of the Judiciary if the law regulating its renewal is modified “simultaneously.”
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