First formal meeting between the new Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, and the acting president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Vicente Guilarte. As soon as he assumed this portfolio, the head of the branch began his round of contacts with the highest representative of the Judiciary in an attempt to achieve the renewal of the body of judges as soon as possible.
During the meeting, both agreed on the need to renew this institution, which has been in operation since December 2018, “as soon as possible.”
In public statements, Bolaños argued that “it cannot occur to anyone that if (the blockade) persists, harm is not being done,” both to Justice and to the country. For this reason, he indicated that the “objective” that he has as Minister of Justice is for “the CGPJ to recover its prestige and return it to the institutional normality that it should never have lost.”
For his part, Guilarte is also committed to a prompt renewal. This lawyer by profession and appointed by the PP as a member of the Council, has been acting president since July, replacing Rafael Mozo, who retired and who in turn had replaced Carlos Lesmes after his resignation. The current president offered this Friday to mediate between both parties to achieve renewal "this year", although he warned that he is not an "agent" with the capacity for renewal because he only depends on Parliament.
The acting president claimed that the political tension created by the amnesty law, currently being processed in parliament, does not affect the renewal. “It has nothing to do with it, at least from the Council. As far as it affects me, it is foreign and I have the best aspirations for this to be renewed,” he warned in public statements.
Shortly before Bolaños arrived at the CGPJ headquarters to meet with Guilarte, Sumar, a PSOE government partner, filed a complaint in the Supreme Court against nine members, including the president, for their statement against the amnesty law before it was passed. is approved. The party led by the Vice President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, accuses these members of the governing body of the judges of incurring an alleged crime of administrative prevarication, which entails disqualification from holding public office, for promoting an “illegal” resolution, “ arbitrary” and that exceeds the powers of the CGPJ.
Bolaños wanted to distance himself from the complaint, ensuring that it is a decision by a political force “that is not the PSOE” and assured that his intention to “build bridges” in this new stage in which he is in charge of the Justice portfolio .
Guilarte went further and shortly before meeting with Bolaños he assured that the complaint presented by Díaz's party is a "political maneuver" that "does not make much sense" when "we are looking for forms of pacification, renewal and consensus" to renew the CGPJ.
One of the members of the body, José María Macías, went a step further and sent a letter to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders to express his concern about the “attempt to annihilate personal and moral” that this complaint entails.
The existing blockade due to the lack of agreement between the PSOE and PP has caused an extension of the body that has already lasted five years. Given the unsustainable situation, the president of the Council, Carlos Lesmes, presented his resignation in October of last year in an attempt to get the two main parties to agree to renew the institution. Since the appointment of its members is by a three-fifths majority, the two main parties need to agree on the list of members who will occupy the seats of the organ.
The PP has repeatedly warned that with the current law it will not renew the Council, considering that the system of electing members must be modified so that it is not Parliament that elects its members, but rather the judicial career itself to greater judicial independence.
The European authorities see renewal as urgent and, therefore, are committed to applying the current norm and then reaching a consensus to reform the election system. Bolaños has already communicated that one of his priorities will be to renew the Council as soon as possible to put an end to this situation. Currently, the body has a conservative majority. The pact that had been reached between both parties when Juan Carlos Campo occupied the minister's chair was an equitable distribution between both parties, but in the end it was not signed.
