First, the General Council of the Judiciary is renewed and only afterwards can the reform of the system of election of its members be addressed.
In this way, the Government responded to the proposal to modify the law to establish a new form of election of the members proposed by the PP in a bill registered in Congress
This initiative intends that the Congress and the Senate do not participate in the designation of the members of the Council that come from the judicial career.
The Minister Spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, rejected this proposal this Wednesday in Ciudad Real and urged the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo to stop making excuses and "abandon the constitutional rebellion" to which its "non-compliance with the Constitution" has led refuse to renew the Council.
The spokeswoman also recalled that this same initiative presented by the PP has already been rejected twice by the Congress of Deputies.
In December 2018, months after the motion of censure and when the negotiations to renew the Council broke down for the first time – after revealing the controversial WhatsApp of Cosidó on control of the Judiciary – the PP proposed for the first time to change the system of choice that was rejected by the rest of the groups.
In December 2021, he resubmitted the same proposal and it was also rejected by the majority.
These precedents were what led the minister spokesperson to recall this Wednesday in her reply to the PP that the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo should keep in mind what majorities it has in Congress to propose this initiative. "To start talking, you have to respect the rules of the game," underlines Isabel Rodríguez, and that happens because the PP "accepts the existing majority in Congress", since Parliament has rejected "twice their proposal" for them to be the judges who choose the judges.
Although it is true that the PP has already presented two bills on two occasions to reform the method of electing the members of the Council, and give a greater role to judges, the bill presented on Tuesday is the first presented by the PP since Alberto Núñez Feijóo was elected president, and is inspired by the main axes of the negotiation that the Government and the PP were carrying out just before the talks were blown up for the abolition of the crime of sedition.
The minister accepted that the system can be reformed but pointed out that what corresponds now is to renew the Council, "later we will see, because in a democracy you can always talk about everything." A position, stressed the Minister Spokesperson, which is what the European Union Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, has claimed.
The European head of Justice has on several occasions urged the Government and the PP to renew the Council and to adapt the legislation to European parameters.
