In the opening act of the judicial year on Thursday, presided over by the King, no express mention was made of the amnesty law that the pro-independence parties are demanding to support the eventual investiture of Pedro Sánchez, only covert references that warned of an attack on judicial independence. But yesterday, the acting president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Vicente Guilarte, expressed more clearly the constitutional reluctance that, in general, prevails in the judiciary: "It is difficult to agree with this", he said.
Guilarte expressed himself thus answering questions from journalists before giving a master's lesson at the University of Valladolid in which he welcomed the students to the Faculty of Law for the 2023-2024 academic year, where this year he retires as professor of Civil Law after 45 years. “There will be time to comment on these issues and wait to see how it develops before giving an opinion. It's premature, it's not the time, now we're at university", he pointed out, before finally admitting that "it's very difficult to agree with this".
The president of the CGPJ, who assumed the position in July in a provisional manner as a result of an indefinite extension of the renewal of the body that already lasts five years, also questioned the constitutionality of the amnesty for the convicted politicians for the pro-independence process in Catalonia in his speech to university students, to whom he warned that "the law, in the hands of the unwary, is a dangerous instrument". Guilarte gave as an example "the illusionists of the right" who "have reappeared to convince us of the goodness of the amnesty, something that is most prudent to question", he indicated.
The magistrate also included in this warning "the hermeneutic delirium of the Rubiales case", which "projected on such a simple factum, also proves it".
Guilarte made no further mention of the amnesty, but of his responsibility as president of the judges' governing body. In his opinion, the law "is a powerful instrument" that "used in the wrong way" can be "enormously harmful", so he appealed to the history of law: "The important thing is to know what the legal institutions are for , to understand its rationality" the result of a sedimentation process of many years, he said.
In addition, the president of the Judiciary revealed that he does not like to command or "give advice", and defined the law as a "particularly competitive" world. "I don't know how I'm going to get out of this," he reflected, referring to his responsibility at the head of the CGPJ.
