The general elections of 23-J arrive with an unprecedented judicial blockade and justice at a minimum with strikes for months by officials, lawyers from the administration of justice and even a feint by the judicial career. The start of the electoral campaign has buried this conflict, which is expected to revive again after the summer.
The warnings from Europe have not mattered, the resignation of the president of the judiciary, Carlos Lesmes, in the face of the blockade situation, the insistent claim of the members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to renew their position after five years in office or the statements of the judicial associations.
During these years, PSOE and PP have been unable to reach an agreement, based on electoral calculations. The PP has used justice to wear down the Government of Pedro Sánchez. First Pablo Casado and then Alberto Núñez Feijóo have refused to sign an agreement to renew the twenty members of the body of judges, despite being a constitutional mandate, and all this in the face of the internal argument that doing so would create a breeding ground that would favor Vox in the face of the wear and tear of agreeing with "sanchismo".
Already before the municipal and regional elections on May 28, within the CGPJ it was taken for granted that the negotiations would not be resumed. There was very little hope that it would happen before the general elections and after the announcement of the electoral advance any option was dissipated.
For a long time, within the two parties, any option to unlock the organ of the judges was considered dead. The leader of the PP has clung to his intention to change the law so that the 12 members who come from the judicial career are chosen by the judges and not by Parliament, despite the fact that the European Justice Commissioner, Didier Reynders, has warned on several occasions that the body must first be renewed and then reform its appointment system. What is clear, according to Council sources, is that "justice does not give votes" and, for this reason, the blockade is maintained.
In the electoral campaign, nothing related to the problems of justice has come to light, beyond the effects that the law of only yes is yes has had with more than a thousand reductions in sentences for sexual abusers and rapists due to a modification of the forks of sentences in criminal types. In addition, during these days the progressive Rafael Mozo has been replaced as president of the CGPJ, due to his retirement, by the conservative member Vicente Guilarte.
Having read the electoral programs, there is nothing to suggest that the situation will improve once there is a new government. The two main parties, PSOE and PP, remain installed in their ideas. The Socialists defend the current model, as it is the most democratic and is endorsed by the Constitutional Court (TC) and enshrined in a State pact: "We will continue to demand the immediate renewal of the CGPJ with the current system of double legitimacy in its election".
The PP continues to accuse the Government of "political interference", and insists in its program that the way to recover the prestige of justice "after the attacks suffered during the last legislature" is to modify the system of election of the members of the Council so that judges and magistrates are the ones who choose the 12 members of judicial origin. "We will repeal the reform that today prevents its normal operation," they say. According to sources from the High Court, this argument, defended by the association of conservative judges, does a disservice to the work of the magistracy by making Europe believe that there is no judicial independence in Spain, at a delicate moment in which the European courts must decide how the Supreme Court acted with the leaders of the process.
If the PP governs after 23-J, it will need the support of Vox to carry out the law, which also defends the modification of the election system to avoid "interference by politicized parties or associations", in addition to betting on giving the body greater budgetary autonomy. Even if they agreed and the reform went ahead, from the Council they calculate that the renewal would not be before a year, between when the law is changed and the new system is introduced, for a body that has been in office since December 2018.
In the reverse case, that Sánchez revalidates power, he would meet with a government partner, Sumar, who is committed to a reform so that the members automatically cease when their term expires. Although they are committed to the current model, Yolanda Díaz's party wants to modify the criteria for designating the members of the judicial shift by the two chambers "to fully respect the will of the guarantors or proposing associations, at least in relation to ten of them (half of the twenty members of the body), with mechanisms that guarantee the proportional presence of all sensitivities".
The body does not predict that there will be a short-term solution, which will lead to perpetuating the blockade while the Council is prevented from making appointments to the Supreme Court, which sees its ability to issue sentences further diminished.
