The Constitutional Court has given for good that it is the plenary session and not a room that studies the appeal presented by the Popular Party against the amendments by which it is intended to modify the system of election of the magistrates of the guarantee body itself. According to sources from the body, by seven votes to four it has been understood that the matter is sufficiently important to be reviewed by all the magistrates of the body and not just by a Chamber.
During this morning's session, the magistrates have entered into a debate on whether the appeal should be admitted for processing. After exposing their positions each one of them, this afternoon they take it to a vote, along with the debate on the very precautionary measures requested by the main opposition party to stop the parliamentary process. Sources from the body explain that given the positions offered, it can be expected that the appeal will be admitted for processing.
This vote is a milestone because it is the first time that this court has been asked to intervene in a parliamentary process before it is approved. The president of the court, Pedro González-Trevijano, initially called the plenary session last Thursday to be able to decide on these measures before the vote in the Congress of Deputies. The PP believes that the amendments violate their rights due to the way in which they are being processed, including them in the reform of a text that has nothing to do with the modification of the TC that they seek before the blockade in the appointment of four magistrates.
The delay in the decision occurred as a result of the position of the progressive members of the court, who asked for more time. The conservatives did not need it because their criteria were already set. The president, finally, wanted to avoid a confrontation and the image of the five progressives walking out of a plenary session and refusing to vote.
One of the decisions that must be adopted is whether to raise the challenges of the president and magistrate Antonio Narváez -as United Podemos has requested- and therefore the debate on the very precautionary measures is paralyzed, or left for later. The other option is to have them rejected outright.
If the plenary session is postponed again, it could be expected that the Senate vote on the reform and it be definitively approved. Once published in the Official State Gazette (BOE), the precautionary or very precautionary measures would cease to have effect.
The PSOE presented this Sunday two writings before the Constitutional Court to try to stop this body from admitting the amparo appeal. The Socialists allege that stopping the reform violates the rights of citizens. One of the appeals calls for the recusal of González-Trevijano and Narváez, who would resign from their posts if the reform to be debated by the Senate is approved.
For its part, Unidas Podemos has presented two writings to the TC on Monday to paralyze the plenary session convened that same morning. In the first, it requests that the TC refer to the High Court of Justice of the European Union the violation of the principle of impartiality in which the González-Trevijano and Narváez incur and rule on their duty to abstain - without waiting for them to be challenged - In the evaluation of the appeal of the PP to paralyze the reform that allows the unblocking of the Constitutional itself.
"It is completely unquestionable that whoever has their mandate expired is directly affected by the norm whose processing the appellants have challenged and this is so due to the simple fact that if said legal reform is enacted they will cease to be members of the Constitutional Court and, therefore, will lose their current position, emoluments and prerogatives as well as the power to decide in the sense they consider or to which they have committed", the text explains.
