The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has received with some hope, although with caution, the agreement reached between the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to begin negotiations for the renewal of the body of the judges, in office for five years due to the blockade maintained between the two parties.
Sources from both the conservative and progressive blocs believe that the intermediation of the European Commission could be a good solution to renew the twenty members and start a negotiation to reform the law that regulates the body so that in the future it is the judges who choose the members. members, thus removing power from Parliament.
The PSOE has never welcomed reforming the law before the renewal, since they believe that the Council would be left without a real representation of society as they understand that in the judicial career there is still a large weight of judges considered conservative. Even so, the President of the Executive and leader of the Socialists has accepted the proposal to appoint a European mediator or verifier to help unblock the situation.
The conservative bloc of the body considers that the option of the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, being an intermediary for the two parties would be the best solution. He has urged on several occasions to first renew the body and then reform the law.
Since assuming the presidency of the PP, Núñez Feijóo has maintained his disagreement with renewing the body if there was not first a reform of the law. Socialist sources, however, remember that Esteban González Pons, on behalf of the PP, closed with Félix Bolaños, as representative of the PSOE, the list of twenty members for the CGPJ. However, they believe that the pressure from the most ultra part of the party, in which they place the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, together with the media, caused the already closed agreement to be broken. In the PP they now see this solution as a “sale of opportunity” to unblock this “distressing” situation.
For their part, the progressive bloc of the Council sees the mediation of the European Commission as a point of “concord.” In this way, Brussels will help Spain recover the credit of its institutions and mainly its justice system, so reviled as a result of this blockade maintained since December 2018 and which is affecting the image of the politicization of justice.
The judicial associations consider that it is an opportunity, but they remain somewhat suspicious. From the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association, its spokesperson, Sergio Oliva, believes that “it means taking a step forward in the attempt to correct this democratic anomaly that has lasted more than five years.” However, he insists that the priority is to reform the organic law of the Judiciary "that allows the judicial career to elect its twelve members in accordance with a representative system that guarantees the plurality of the judicial career," he stressed after learning the result of the meeting. between Sánchez and Núñez Feijóo.
In recent weeks, the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts, Félix Bolaños, has initiated a round of contacts with representatives of the judiciary. The first meeting was held precisely with the acting president of the CGPJ, Vicente Guilarte, who showed his willingness to build bridges and collaborate in whatever was in his power to achieve the renewal of the body as soon as possible, in a very delicate situation since the Last year its president Carlos Lesmes resigned.
