Several members of the conservative sector of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), whose mandate has expired for five years, have begun the tasks of preparing a report on the proposed amnesty law with the aim of making it public in the coming weeks, while It is processed in the Congress of Deputies.
The initiative has arisen as a result of the Senate Board, with an absolute majority of the PP, approved on the 5th to request both the governing body of the judges and the Fiscal Council for their opinion on the bill presented by the Socialist Group.
The Senate's request has already reached the Council of the Judiciary, which in the coming days will name the rapporteur or rapporteurs for the future opinion. In fact, some of the members of the conservative sector had already begun the preparatory tasks of the report. Eight of the 17 members of the current CGPJ, all of them elected at the proposal of the PP, weeks ago began a strategy of repeated attacks on the Government for the agreements reached between the PSOE and Junts to facilitate the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.
These agreements included the presentation of the amnesty law proposal to benefit nearly 400 defendants in the Catalan independence process, including former president Carles Puigdemont. The legislative initiative begins its parliamentary journey on Tuesday with the consideration of the proposal in Congress.
The criteria that will be imposed on the CGPJ, given its current conservative majority, will be very critical of the bill and will question its constitutionality, according to various members. On November 6, the conservative majority of the CGPJ supported a statement against the amnesty law, even before knowing its content.
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This statement expressed the opinion that the pardon measure not only “is not compatible with the principle of the rule of law,” but also creates “a political class that is legally irresponsible and unpunished for its crimes.” “Through this singular law,” the declaration stated, “the sentences handed down by the different courts would be declared null and void and this singular law would invade the powers that the courts are exclusively entrusted with (article 117.3 of the Constitution).
The PP proposal to consult the General Council of the Judiciary and the Fiscal Council on the amnesty law was also formulated in Congress, but the majority that PSOE and Sumar have in the Lower House Table prevented the initiative from being approved. would prosper.
Law proposals do not require reports from the General Council of the Judiciary or the Council of State, which are mandatory (although not binding) when it comes to bills sent by the Government to the Cortes.
Interference
Legal sources consulted by EL PAÍS point out that the Senate's initiative to request a report from the CGPJ on a bill should be included as a possibility in the regulations of the Upper House, something that does not happen. The PP did not include it in the modification of the regulations approved several weeks ago to prolong the processing of the amnesty up to two months once it has been approved in Congress.
The same sources point out that the Senate's request at this time represents an interference in the work of Congress, which has not even begun to process the bill, so it could happen that the CGPJ prepares the report on a different text than the one that the Senate will receive for processing once it is approved by Congress.
Members of the Council of the Judiciary indicate that the Senate's request, forced by the absolute majority of the PP, represents the ideal scenario for the governing body of the judges to once again make its voice heard in this matter with parliamentary protection, although the sector conservative would have prepared the report without the need for it to be requested by the House.
In the last permanent commission of the organization, held last week, the conservatives tried to force a very harsh statement against the investigative commissions created in Congress to investigate police maneuvers against Catalan independentists and the espionage of leaders of the Generalitat with the Pegasus program. The substitute president of the General Council of the Judiciary, Vicente Guilarte, also elected at the time at the proposal of the PP, stood up to the two representatives of the progressive sector to prevent it. Guilarte has distanced himself in recent weeks from the conservative offensive of the Judiciary, even warning that the Council should not incur undue interference with the legislative power.
The PP denounced on several occasions during the last legislature that the coalition Executive used the route of law proposals through the parties that formed it, PSOE and Podemos, to avoid obtaining the report from the State's advisory bodies. The absolute majority of the PP in the Senate has now allowed the request for the report to be approved without being legally provided for.
No renewal in sight
The last steps taken by the PP in the Senate, approving the request for the report, and the intention of several members of the conservative sector to prepare it, even if it had not been requested, are interpreted in sources from the judges' own governing body as data more than it sets up a scenario in which it will be very difficult for the Executive and the opposition to approximate positions on judicial policy in the short term.
In the Council, both in the conservative sector and in the progressive group, it is considered unlikely that significant progress will be made in the meeting proposed by the president, Pedro Sánchez, with the popular leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, before the end of the year.
Pessimism extends to the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary, on which a debate continues with no solution in sight. The initiative of the provisional president of the Judiciary, Vicente Guilarte, to facilitate this renewal has generated reservations in both sectors of the governing body of the judges.
Guilarte's proposal, detailed in an article he published in EL PAÍS, consists of removing key competence from the General Council of the Judiciary over the appointments of judicial positions and leaving it in the hands of the judges of hearings and superior courts themselves. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, even suggested that if there is no agreement with the PP, they could promote a proposal to reform the Judiciary Law that includes Guilarte's ideas.
Both conservatives and progressives believe that the power to appoint high-ranking officials in judicial bodies – such as the Supreme Court, the superior courts of the autonomous communities or the National Court – should remain in the hands of the General Council of the Judiciary. Members of both sectors consider that in no way should this function be left to a new body independent of the Council, a possibility contemplated by what has already been named via Guilarte to try to unblock the renewal of the governing body of the judges.
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