The President of the Supreme Court and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Carlos Lesmes, upon leaving the opening ceremony of the judicial year, at the Supreme Court, this Wednesday in Madrid.
In the background, on the left, the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)
The PP does not step on the brake.
Despite the tremendous pressure on Alberto Núñez Feijóo due to the words of the president of the Supreme Court, Carlos Lesmes, who this Wednesday has threatened to resign if there is no renewal of the CGPJ in the coming weeks, and the clash with the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop , the leader of the PP has decided to remain entrenched in his position, aware that the end could be a disastrous scenario for everyone.
And very especially for the PP.
However, Feijóo takes the risk.
In the early afternoon, he sent a statement in which he insisted on his conditions: the PP, the text said, has "the maximum willingness to sit down with the Government", but it has to accept its usual demands: "address the reform of the Judiciary and, under certain minimum requirements of independence, the joint renewal of the TC and the CGPJ”.
That is, the Government has to give up appointing the two Constitutional magistrates that correspond to it and the two that correspond to the CGPJ, an operation that the PP is trying to short-circuit in parallel with a rebellion by the conservative members of the Council.
More information
Lesmes, on the blockade of the Judiciary: "If it persists, we will have to make decisions that we neither want nor like"
In response, Executive sources have accused the PP of getting involved in "excuses for not complying with the constitutional mandate."
“It is confirmed that, before the Constitution, there are only two attitudes, to comply with it in all its points, as the Government defends, or to interpret it at convenience and obstruct its compliance, as the PP insists on doing,” they point out.
“The Government has always had and continues to have the availability to renew the CGPJ under the current law and under the constitutional mandate.
It can be done today”, they insist.
In the Government they are increasingly indignant with the PP, because it no longer only blocks the renewal of the CGPJ, they are also trying to influence so that the Constitutional Court is not renewed, something that had never happened before.
The Constitutional has always changed the majority with the renewals depending on who was in the Government at that time, because the Executive appoints two.
In La Moncloa they consider that the PP is failing to comply with a basic democratic principle, which is to accept that when the citizens put a progressive government in power, it has the right to renew the two members that touch it with its tendency while the CGPJ appoints a conservative and a progressive, which is what he has always done.
The Government does not have much confidence that the PP agrees to reasons, because they believe that Feijóo has chosen to block everything,
Conservative vocal boycott
In this pulse to the Government, the leadership of the PP is convinced that the conspiracy of the conservative members of the Council to torpedo the renewal of the Constitutional will go ahead and the Executive will not be able to appoint the third of magistrates of the court of guarantees that corresponds to appoint, which would mean a change in this body from a conservative majority to a progressive one.
Sources from the popular leadership assure that the unity of the conservative sector of the CGPJ is "reconstructed" and, therefore, the appointments will not go ahead.
In the event that the conservative boycott succeeds, the PP leadership estimates that Europe would intervene and not only the PP, but also the Government, would be seriously affected.
Despite the fact that this would be a catastrophic scenario for the image of justice and of the two major parties,
With this disastrous ending, the PP puts pressure on the Government to compromise with its conditions, backtrack on the Constitutional and sit down with them to negotiate everything from scratch, Constitutional and CGPJ, as if nothing had happened.
“Now it can.
If they insist on renewing the TC by force, they will break everything”, they say in the popular leadership.
Feijóo steps on the accelerator, but while the pressure in the party also increases, with some sectors in favor of reaching an agreement once and for all with the government.
Leaders consulted by EL PAÍS consider that Feijóo should close a pact with the Executive, although they believe that the initiative corresponds to the Government.
In any case, the majority considers that the PP does not cause electoral wear on this matter, because it is not in the street and is not part of the citizens' concerns.
“You go out into the street and ask who Lesmes is and nobody knows how to tell you”, exemplifies a popular baron.
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