European justice asks the Government for explanations about the lack of renewal of the Judiciary

The president of the General Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court, Carlos Lesmes (on the right), on February 22, before the meeting between the Supreme Court's Governing Chamber and the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, to explain the problems of the high court, with 12 existing vacancies that it cannot cover due to the lack of renewal of the CGPJ. MARISCAL (EFE)

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has required the Spanish Government to formulate allegations in response to the complaint filed by six magistrates for the lack of renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary since 2018. All of them filed a lawsuit last October before the European justice stating that the rights of the judges themselves are being violated and that the inactivity of the Cortes Generales on this matter is due to “merely political reasons and interests”.

Specifically, the complaint filed with the Strasbourg Court is based on the fact that in 2018 the list of the 50 active judges who presented themselves as candidates to serve as members in a renewed Judicial Power Council was sent to Parliament.

Given the lack of progress in the process to agree on this renewal, they subsequently went to the Constitutional Court, by way of an amparo appeal.

The guarantee body flatly rejected this appeal, considering that it was filed after the deadline.

What the European justice is studying, therefore, is whether throughout the process undertaken by these magistrates to defend the effectiveness of their candidacies, and with them the renewal of the governing body of the judges, their fundamental rights have been violated, to under articles 6 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

These are two precepts related to the guarantee of access to judicial procedures within reasonable time limits.

At the initiative of the appellants —all of them belonging to the Francisco de Vitoria Association of Judges (AJFV)—, the European Court of Human Rights has required the Government to present a statement of facts together with its observations on the admissibility and merits of the complaint filed.

The magistrates who have gone before the Strasbourg Court consider that, among others, their rights of access to public office, established in article 23 of the Constitution, have been violated.

The Francisco de Vitoria Association considers, in turn, that "the fact that the highest court of guarantees did not even enter to examine the matter for a formal reason forced the magistrates to go before the ECHR, which will also examine the performance of the Court Constitutional in this case.

The spokesman for the judicial association, Jorge Fernández Vaquero, has stated in this regard that "the vices of the current system are what have caused the parties to block the General Council of the Judiciary."

Fernández Vaquero believes that although Spain "is a full rule of law", there are "certain cracks in the institutional system that are widening in recent times", among which "the election process" of the governing body of the judges.

Hence the filing of the complaint, with the purpose that "with this lawsuit the European Court of Human Rights can correct some of these defects", such as the one that allows a renewal that should have occurred in 2018 to remain pending in 2022.