As if it were a pedestrian Hispanic adaptation of Kafka's The Process, the story of the paralysis of the General Council of the Judicial Power (CGPJ) today reaches its fifth consecutive year in office due to the inability of the two parties that alternate in the government, PSOE and PP, to agree on its renewal.
This anomaly, which translates into an image of the breakdown of the system that delegitimizes the Judiciary before the public, has been taking place since December 4, 2018, so that its dwindling number of members - from 20 have gone to 16 by the resignations and retirements – he has been in office since the end of 2013, when the popular Mariano Rajoy ruled, and with the mandate having expired five years ago.
Three presidents have passed through the CGPJ in this decade. The last of them, Vicente Guilarte, who is provisionally so, has indicated an emergency exit for the labyrinth of politicization in which the magistrates find themselves: a reform so that they are the judges, without intervention from the top, the to elect the presidents of the courts at a time when there are already 85 key positions in the judiciary unfilled. Of these charges, 23 in the Supreme Court, where some rooms are on the verge of collapse. But this proposal to reduce the powers of the CGPJ to facilitate a political agreement is up in the air and the door to renewal remains closed.
That of Guilarte, who met with the new Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, and aims to reconcile positions between the PSOE and the PP, is added to a chain of attempts to unblock the governing body of judges. All unsuccessful. And the polarization that derives from the investiture of Pedro Sánchez thanks to the impetus of an amnesty law that has revolted the judiciary and thrown the PP into the streets does not even foresee an agreement on minimums.
Be that as it may, it is unlikely that the agreement, which was almost closed in 2018, will resume and that in the end the leadership of the PP, with Pablo Casado at the head, decided to keep delaying, with varied justifications, until they let it rot. Let alone sign up for a new one. However, the renewal is a priority objective of the Spanish Government, which has already received several warnings from the European institutions and even maneuvered in the previous legislature to eliminate the qualified majority of three fifths of the Courts required by the Constitution. But Brussels did not agree to change the rules of the game.
The new leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who at first seemed favorable to an understanding with the Executive of Pedro Sánchez in judicial matters, soon followed in the footsteps of his predecessor and refused to sign an agreement without the prior commitment of 'a legal reform so that it is the judges themselves who elect the members of the CGPJ.
The challenge of an en bloc resignation to force the parties has also been raised, but the mistrust between the conservative, majority members and the progressives has thwarted this possibility. This is how things are, the CGPJ is approaching the abyss and, far from stopping, it is advancing in politicization with unprecedented decisions such as the preparation of a report against the amnesty law before it was made public or the refusal to declare Álvaro García Ortiz suitable as attorney general.
