The advancement of the general elections announced by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, after the disaster of the regional and municipal elections has generated a unease within the justice system, which has further deepened his already deteriorated health at a time when officials, lawyers and judges are on the warpath over salary issues and the judicial leadership is on the verge of collapse due to the blockade of the CGPJ.
On the one hand, there are the appeals presented before the Constitutional Court by the PP and Vox against the reform of the organic law of the Judiciary (LOPJ) by which the functions of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) were limited. The new date of the elections for July 23 could delay the resolution. The organ is studying whether it gives time for it to study in the two plenary sessions that remain in the month of June. If not, the court would already have to wait for the elections to pass to make a decision.
The bill presented by PSOE and Unidas Podemos, and approved in April 2021, intended that the body of judges, with a conservative majority, could not continue making appointments to the judicial leadership while the PP maintained the blockade of the Council, which has already four and a half years with the mandate extended.
The president of the Constitutional, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, had proposed to bring this issue to the plenary session as soon as possible, as part of his plan to move forward with the most urgent issues once he assumed the presidency of the constitutional body in January. The last forecast was to be able to take the presentation of the magistrate María Luisa Balaguer, on the appeal of Vox, for this week's plenary session, just after the regional elections.
The magistrate's text is already finalized and, according to sources from the body, it is aimed at rejecting the appeal and therefore defending the constitutionality of the reform. According to these same sources, for the rapporteur the only possible fault of unconstitutionality of the proposal promoted by the two parties that make up the government coalition was the impossibility of making the appointments of TC magistrates. Unlike the rest of the appointments of the judicial leadership, those of the TC are provided for in the Constitution. However, the proponents have already corrected this part of the text with a counter-reform that was approved in July 2022.
The court is waiting for the completion of César Tolosa's presentation on the PP's appeal to try to bring the two texts to full effect simultaneously, in the expectation that they will go in different directions.
In addition to this dilemma, Rafael Mozo, current acting president of the CGPJ, replacing Carlos Lesmes after his resignation, will retire on July 19. A third president while the body is in office further aggravates the situation and the image of the judiciary, especially at a European level. Within the Council they are aware that the situation can still last for at least a year.
In the event that there was an electoral turnaround, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has already advanced his intention to change the law so that it is the judges, and not the Parliament, who choose the twelve -of the total of 20 – vowels of judicial appointment. This means that the renewal of the organ could be further postponed. The blockade of the CGPJ and the few expectations that the TC will allow appointments again, has a direct implication in the judicial leadership, mainly in the Supreme Court, which already has around 25% of the vacancies.
And finally, the advance takes place in the middle of a strike by Justice officials, which has joined the one started by the lawyers of the Administration of Justice and the one that the judges also threatened to do. The latter signed an agreement in extremis with the department headed by Pilar Llop for a salary increase, although the advance announced by Sánchez was made before its official approval. Now the officials are trying to force the ministry to sign an agreement, although time is against them. That strike that began on May 22 has caused, according to union data, more than a million lawsuits and forty million suspended actions.
