When we old journalists joke about the bad reputation of our profession, we resort to the phrase “don't tell my mother that I work in a newspaper, tell her that I am a pianist in a brothel”. It is true that we came out very badly in the CIS surveys when citizens are asked about our work, but there is another apparently more respectable profession that usually receives resounding failures in opinion polls. It's about the judiciary. We live in times in which representing a type of authority, be it as a politician, police officer, teacher or any other, enjoys little prestige. Authority is based on tradition, laws or respect, but it collapses when its prerogatives are abused to favor sectarian interests. This is what happens with the judges, victims of a systematic erosion of their power due to the partisan use of the appointments in their leadership. Half of Spaniards believe that justice is politicized. I mean, it's unfair. Despite this alarming data, PP and PSOE have not renewed their senior judicial positions for three years.
Perhaps we have judges who have bent their elbows a lot and memorized enormous doctrine, but it is of little use if people have the impression that, too often, they are carried away by an ideological bias or social prejudice. Brussels has been urging Spain for years to change the system of electing senior magistrates so that professionals decide more and politicians less, but the PSOE resists because it knows that conservative sentiment is in the majority among them, while the PP is already doing well maintain a leadership close to its postulates. One for the other, neither what is urgent nor what is important is attended to. However, it is fair to point to the PP as responsible for aggravating the damage. First, because they have never before tried to change the system that they are now calling into question. Second, because that Constitution that they claim to respect legitimizes high-ranking magistrates through their appointment by Parliament. To prevent the design of the polls from being fulfilled should be a constitutional contempt for the PP. And third, if Feijóo aspires to govern, he may find himself with the same medicine. The magistrates should pressure the PP to abandon the excuses. If not, they will end up with just as bad press as the journalists.
