The institutional crisis starring these days opens a mystery. Are there options for a way out that deflates the tension created between the Cortes Generales, the Constitutional Court, the Government, the Popular Party and the General Council of the Judiciary? Solutions exist, there are ways out, but the situation of confrontation and polarization that has set in on all fronts makes it complicated.
The body of judges has the option in the next few days to appoint two TC magistrates, which would open the way to unblock the situation; the PP could cede and renew the CGPJ; The PSOE can withdraw all the reforms approved in the last year that have strained the judiciary, and instead present a bill to modify the system of election of the magistrates of the guarantee body.
The CGPJ has once again convened an extraordinary plenary session on Tuesday 27, to try to name two Constitutional magistrates. The expectations of success are minimal. The conservative members do not want to support the candidate of the progressives, so the blockade remains. And the progressives refuse to support another progressive candidate that is not theirs, the Supreme Court magistrate José Manuel Bandrés. The conservatives have been blocking the situation since the mandate of four magistrates expired in June. The reason they offer is that they are not going to favor the Government being able to choose its two candidates after what they consider an attack on the judiciary. For all this, and if there are no changes, this route is practically banished.
The Socialists have carried out two reforms since last year that have generated great discomfort in the judicial career. The first was the one that made it possible to modify the law to prevent the CGPJ from continuing to make appointments of magistrates while it is in office. The objective was to pressure the PP to renew the body, expired since 2018. And the second reform was a modification of it to allow the CGPJ to make appointments but only for the TC. For the conservative members, what was done was a "tampering" with the law for their own benefit. The background was to get the body of judges to appoint its two magistrates for the body that defends the Magna Carta, which allowed the Government to appoint the two that it is responsible for designating and thus achieve a progressive majority in court.
The conservative members demand that the reforms be withdrawn, or else they will maintain the blockade. In that case, if the amendments were withdrawn, there would be a way out of the clash between institutions. But it does not seem that this is going to happen, because both the PSOE and the Government blame the blockade situation on the PP. Here comes the third possible solution.
When Alberto Núñez Feijóo replaced Pablo Casado at the head of the PP, the judiciary was convinced that as a statesman he would unblock the governing body of judges in the face of a situation that was becoming increasingly untenable, as courts such as the Supreme Court were affected, on the way to collapse due to the lack of magistrates. If the PP renewed the CGPJ, the new members would immediately elect the two magistrates of the TC, the Government would do the same with its own, and then it could begin to name all the vacant positions in the judiciary.
However, the popular are not willing to give up and have made it clear that the Council will continue with the expired mandate sine die. Núñez Feijóo, just like Casado did, has started a race of excuses against the Government for refusing to renew the body, despite the existence of a constitutional mandate that requires renewal every five years.
Faced with all these scenarios, the Government, through the socialist parliamentary group, has tried to modify the system of election of the magistrates of the TC to bypass the blockade of the conservative members of the CGPJ.
The PP wanted to stop this amendment, went to the TC itself and it has agreed with it, which has unleashed the institutional crisis by paralyzing the parliamentary process before the amendment is approved. It is an unprecedented action within the court, which has generated great internal tension, since it has clearly divided the body in two, between accusations by the progressive magistrates against the conservatives of having broken the law by agreeing on very precautionary measures prior to the approval of the law.
The last option that the Executive has is to try it again but instead of presenting it through an amendment, do it with a bill. Parliamentary sources calculate that if this is done, the reform could be approved in a month, which would force the CGPJ once and for all to appoint the two magistrates of the TC and would open a stage of a court with a progressive majority.
