President Pedro Sánchez activated this Wednesday an
express
mini-reform
of the law that regulates the Council of the Judiciary to limit its powers when it is in office.
Sánchez thus tried to satisfy somewhat the demands of United We Can and, at the same time, leave a door open to a future pact with the PP.
The new proposal focuses on limiting the appointments that the Council can execute with its extended mandate, as it is now, but it puts aside the key aspect of the reform to change the majority system and thus avoid the PP's veto capacity when electing the body of Government of the judges.
After several pressures on the PP, public and private, the president of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, has once again chosen to buy some time before launching without the main opposition party a relevant change in the law that regulates the operation of the governing body of the judiciary, one of the pillars of the rule of law.
Sánchez has spent months, and more intensely in recent weeks, listening to his Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, with very optimistic perspectives on an imminent pact with the PP to resolve the renewal of the 20 members and the president of the General Council of Power Judicial.
The government of the judges has two years with the mandate expired due to the refusal of the PP, whose votes are essential, to negotiate its renewal.
That pact has not just arrived.
The head of government and other relevant members of the PSOE leadership have never been as optimistic as the minister, who has maintained a very good relationship with his PP interlocutor, Enrique López, from Madrid.
But those contacts have not borne fruit at all, unless it can be announced by both parties publicly.
The minister maintains, and has defended it these days even in public events, that the substantive agreement is closed.
From the leadership of the PP this scenario is denied, but popular sources closer to the negotiation accept that the positions of both parties are "very drawn."
There, the PSOE and PP would each have the possibility of proposing 10 candidates from among the 50 judges already selected, with professional and independent profiles and, in theory, without the ability to veto specific names.
In the PP they point out that they have not yet specified names for those positions and they are suspicious that the PSOE wants to introduce candidates close to Podemos in their quota, despite the fact that in the current Council closed in 2013 with an absolute majority government of the PP there are members who supported the Catalan nationalists and the United Left.
The discussion already stalled at that point in August and continues practically in the same alley.
President Sánchez attempted an offer to the leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, in October, during the debate on Vox's motion of censure, and froze a joint proposal with Podemos to face a broader reform of the law of the Judiciary.
If that initiative had been successful, and it is not yet withdrawn, the renewal of the Council could be approved by an absolute majority of Congress (176 seats) compared to the three-fifths (210) that are required now.
With this simple change, the Government would guarantee a Judicial Power closer to the majority that led to the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez 11 months ago and to the support already agreed for the 2021 budgets that will go ahead today in Congress.
United We can press the PSOE again on Tuesday to "unfreeze" that tough reform and bring it to full debate on December 15th within the next quota that corresponds to the Socialists for such initiatives.
The president, however, wants to give another new term with the PP.
On Tuesday afternoon, he called the first vice president, Carmen Calvo, when she was addressing the control session to the Government that was held in the Senate, and raised the option of executing now only the change to restrict the type of appointments that may be approved by a Council in office, as in other State institutions.
From the Senate, the vice president spoke with the Minister of Justice, the most supportive in the Executive of the contacts to solve this problem with the PP.
And at night, around 9:30 p.m., Calvo informed the second vice president, Pablo Iglesias, leader of United We Can, so that this time the problems of internal lack of coordination observed in the Executive in recent weeks between the two coalition partners would not be reproduced .
This express mini-reform of the Judicial Power is not the one that Podemos is pursuing, which for now is content with what it classifies as an “advance”.
Sources from the government leadership justify the need for this measure by the importance of ending the interim status of a key body in the institutional framework.
But, above all, to force the PP and facilitate an entry into the pact by putting aside for now the idea of changing the majority system in force for the election of the Council, something that Brussels looks at with suspicion, according to the Commissioner for Justice, but Also parties of the parliamentary left, such as Más País, which this Wednesday welcomed the rectification.
Stop appointments
In explaining the reasons for the new proposal, PSOE and Podemos determine as something "logical" the need to "limit the decisions taken by an outgoing CGPJ, whose members have exceeded the constitutional period of mandate."
And they detail that in situations like the current one, it should not be possible to appoint the presidents of the hearings, the higher courts of justice and the National Court, the presidents of the Chamber and the magistrates of the Supreme Court or the magistrates of the Constitutional Court, among many other positions. .
The Judicial Power Law in force since 1985 has this legal gap and does not contemplate what a Council in office should do, so its president, Carlos Lesmes, has chosen to promote several dozen pending appointments so as not to paralyze the administration of Justice.
Lesmes has required the renewal of the body that he presides several times through letters sent to the presidents of Congress and the Senate.
Unsuccessfully.
The calendar
The parties have a series of quotas to present their legislative initiatives in the plenary session of Congress and the PSOE would be next on December 15.
PSOE and United We Can registered on Wednesday their proposal for an express reform law of the Judicial Power and the board of spokespersons will process it next week so that it arrives on time.
Then an uncertain calendar opens.
The two parties would have to propose an emergency procedure, with a single reading, and the Government should enable the month of January as a business (normally it is not) so that the project could move forward and could be approved before the Catalan elections on February 14 .
Otherwise, the process will be delayed and could overcome all filters at the end of February and reach the final plenary session even in March, which is more convincing in the PP.
If PSOE and PP reached an agreement before, the reform proposed now would have no effect.