The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has in its hands to settle the open institutional crisis and that yesterday put the icing on the cake by the decision of the Constitutional Court to stop a legislative process that sought to modify the system of election of its magistrates.
The body of judges is holding an extraordinary plenary session this afternoon to vote on the appointment of two magistrates of the TC. If a majority of the Council supported the candidates presented, the open crisis would remain stagnant.
However, sources from the body acknowledge that the result of today's plenary session is "unpredictable." The call was forced by the conservative members of the body, in a maneuver to prevent the progressives from being able to carry out their candidate once the reform of the law that was paralyzed yesterday was approved. With the reform, the Council would only need a simple majority –not qualified- to vote for the candidates, which meant that a consensus between the two blocks would not be needed to get the names forward.
For months the conservatives have blocked the appointments for two reasons: on the one hand because they do not like the candidate proposed by the progressives, José Manuel Bandrés, understanding that he has ties to the Government. And on the other hand, they do not want to encourage the Executive to appoint its two magistrates. With the current law in hand, the two appointments by the CGPJ and those of the Executive have to go hand in hand, so until the two institutions agree they cannot be approved. What the conservatives achieve with this maneuver is to prevent a progressive majority from reaching the TC.
Faced with the reform presented by the PSOE, the conservative members used a new strategy, which was to present two candidates, one of their own and the other progressive (the latter is Pablo Lucas), to be voted on and leave Bandrés out.
And these two names are the ones that are going to be voted on today in the Council. The conservatives hope that there will be at least one progressive member who supports Lucas and thus be able to carry out the appointments.
Sources from the body of judges believe that it is in their hands to end this institutional crisis. If the necessary majority were achieved today to approve these two names, there would be a free hand for the TC to convene a government plenary session tomorrow and give the placet to these two magistrates together with the two chosen by the Government, Juan Carlos Campo and Laura Díez .
In this way, the TC would be renewed and the amendment presented by the Socialists would no longer make sense. Conservative sources of the Council maintain that with this step forward it would stop the Government from continuing to present reforms in Congress to modify the laws to force the appointments of the TC.
"It is a matter of institutional responsibility," they point out. What happens is that from the progressive sector they do not accept the play of the conservatives because they are imposing a candidate who is not the one chosen by them. In addition, they blame for this situation those members who have refused since September to appoint two magistrates when a law forced them to do so in a timely manner.
And in addition to all this, they remember that the origin of the judicial blockade comes from the Popular Party, which for four years has systematically refused to renew the CGPJ, which has been in office since December 2018, which has caused the Socialists have been undertaking reform to find a formula for such unlocking.
