The memorable resignation of the president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and of the Supreme Court a year ago did not have the intended effect. The intention of Carlos Lesmes when he announced in an institutional video that he was leaving his position and regaining his position as a Supreme Court judge was to make the PP and the PSOE come to their senses so that they put an end to the blockade of the Judiciary. It was a desperate attempt and it has come to nothing.
Lesmes submitted his resignation in October 2022, after almost four years, at that time, of delay in renewing the judges' governing body. He thus fulfilled a threat he had made for the first time before the King during the opening of the judicial year, at the beginning of September of that year. The then president of the CGPJ gave the two main parties a month to reach an agreement. The 12th of October had been set as the deadline. He could not appear at the side of Philip VI during the military parade after the serious warning he had given.
On October 10, Lesmes resigned due to the "repeated violation" of the deadline to fulfill the constitutional mandate to renew the body and the inability of the PSOE and the PP to reach an agreement. The Twelfth of October was celebrated without a representation of the Judiciary.
That impact seemed like it had to have positive consequences. The president of the central government, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, met in Moncloa, they talked about it, but everything remained the same. In one year, Lesmes has had two substitutes in the presidency of the CGPJ – Rafael Mozo and now Vicente Guilarte–, while that of the Supreme Court is exercised by the oldest magistrate, Francisco Marín. And one of the consequences of the political deadlock is the damage caused to the image of judicial independence.
But political positions are poisoned. The PP maintains its resounding refusal to renew the twenty members through an agreement with the PSOE within the framework of current legislation. The populists have fixed their speech on this issue and defend that it is necessary to modify the law governing the election system of the members of the CGPJ, because it does not meet European standards of judicial independence. Members are currently elected by the chambers with a three-fifths majority. For the part of the members who come from the judicial career there is a pre-selection that goes mainly through the judicial associations, which deliver a list of possible candidates.
The European Union has demanded the modification of the law, although it has warned that the situation of persistent blockage of the Judicial Power in Spain, which has already lasted almost five years, cannot continue. The message is clear: first renew, then reform. The PSOE has offered a commitment to renew and then negotiate a possible reform. Despite this, the PP does not trust it, point out sources from this party. In this mutual distrust the situation is perpetuated.
Parliamentary sources acknowledge that the situation is now in limbo as long as there is no investiture. Sánchez is negotiating with the pro-independence parties for the approval of an amnesty law that would archive all legal cases linked to the process, including that of former president Carles Puigdemont. The PP has spoken out against this future law, and party sources emphasize that its approval would make it even more difficult, if this is possible, any agreement with the PSOE to unblock the Judiciary. In fact, from the body of judges it is feared that if Feijóo has the belief that a new mandate of Sánchez may be of short duration, he will maintain the struggle and leave the situation as it is, with the hope of reaching the government and be able to reform the organic law of the Judiciary (LOPJ).
As long as Feijóo does not loosen the rope, the discomfort in the Supreme and the hopelessness in the CGPJ increase. In addition, the recent sentence of the Constitutional Court that recognizes the reform of the LOPJ promoted by the PSOE and Podemos has been another bucket of cold water for both the Judiciary and the PP, although neither has taken by surprise
The PSOE chose in 2021 to modify the law to prevent the CGPJ from making appointments of magistrates while in office. The plan was that this suffocation would force the PP to renew the body, which has a conservative majority and whose mandate expired in December 2018.
The reform has caused a collapse in the Supreme Court, where the trickle of retirements is incessant and magistrates cannot be replaced. A third of the places in the highest court are unoccupied, with the consequence of a significant decrease in judgments to be handed down, which can reach a thousand less each year. Some members of the court were confident that the TC would declare the reform unconstitutional and they could recover the seats and return to normality.
The last problem is that which affects military jurisdiction. In this case the appointment of its members depends on the CGPJ and currently 45% are unoccupied, according to sources in the body. The Council is now looking for a solution to try to fill them with substitutes in the face of the risk of paralyzing its operation due to a lack of members to make up the military tribunals.
