The blockade of the PP to the judiciary reaches the limit and cracks its majority

What most despairs many of the protagonists of this story is that it seems like one more battle between politicians, without social relevance.

Almost no one cares.

“Many people listen to the General Council of the Judiciary and disconnect.

It's like it's someone else's problem.

But it is a basic question of any democracy: respect for the change of majorities when there are elections”, summarizes a member of the Government.

The situation, especially seen from the progressive sector, is so serious that some in private even speak of a "soft coup", because they believe that, without going into details, the bottom line is that the PP does not quite recognize that the left-wing bloc won the elections and that, as has always happened in the more than 40 years of democracy, has to be transferred to both the CGPJ and the Constitutional Court, since both are elected directly or indirectly by the political power that emanates of the polls.

The PP, with its blockade, has achieved that for almost four years at the top of the judiciary, which is elected by the legislative power, the change in majorities that the voters initiated in 2015 has not had any effect —when the PP lost the absolute with which he elected the current CGPJ—and finished off in 2019, when the party became a notable minority in Congress with 88 seats, compared to the 183 it had in 2011.

But that popular strategy is reaching its limit.

This week it has become very clear that the unshakable conservative majority of the CGPJ that supported this blockade, especially with its decision not to resign, is cracking, because the passage of time, the deterioration of the image and the practical consequences of the paralysis of appointments it has become unsustainable.

The evident alliance between Carlos Lesmes, president of the CGPJ, conservative, always close to the PP, and the progressive sector to at least renew the Constitutional Court is complicating the PP blockade strategy.

The threat of resignation of Lesmes puts even more pressure on the popular to assume that they can no longer take it anymore.

If Lesmes manages to convince some other magistrate from the conservative bloc, something feasible according to various sources, he could achieve a block of 12 members to renew the two Constitutional magistrates that correspond to the CGPJ as always, with a conservative magistrate and a progressive one, and resolve this problem.

Immediately afterwards, the Government would elect the two that correspond to it and thus the majority would be progressive for the next nine years, in the same way that it has been conservative for the last nine, because it was renewed in 2013, when the Government was from the PP and elected to two members —Enrique López and Francisco José Hernando— who decided the majority.

Delay or block renewal

The popular ones, for their part, do not hide that they are trying to achieve the opposite: that their bloc remains united in the blockade.

And they are deploying their entire arsenal, including letters to the European Commission, to make things very difficult for the Government.

At the moment, the strong man of this sector, José María Macías, has not even given Álvaro Cuesta, the main mediator of the progressive sector, the name of the list of negotiators from the conservative sector.

An obvious way to buy time to delay the renewal or even block it.

In Genoa they do not hide that behind everything that is happening these days there is a political strategy.

Feijóo, party sources admit, has decided to move to obstruct the renewal and force the government to sit down to negotiate.

And they also recognize that the group of conservative members most willing to block the renewal act in coordination with the PP.

The popular handle as they want the General Council of the Judiciary, or at least an important part, without flinching.

But the pressure on the PP to reach an agreement with the Government is also very strong, and Feijóo had to endure live on Wednesday the scolding of Lesmes -who in his day had been placed in his position by the PP itself- about his conditions to agree on the CGPJ.

"The renewal of the Council must be undertaken urgently [...] without being subject to any political force with successive conditions that prevent clear compliance with the constitutional mandate," Lesmes launched at the conservative party's jugular.

Feijóo was forced to move again, at least in the guise of seeking an agreement, and sent a threat of a negotiation offer on Friday in a letter from Esteban González Pons to Félix Bolaños with the usual conditions.

The PP now maintains that it would accept a majority of 7-5 in favor of the progressives if the Government guarantees that the sick leave of the conservative Alfredo Montoya will be replaced by another of its current, to avoid a progressive majority of 7-4 if the vacancy remains indefinitely.

In the Executive they answer that all these arguments are one more trick.

They, they say, have no problem renewing Montoya and guaranteeing that 7-5, but it is the PP that does not assume the change of majorities.

If he had done so, it would already be agreed, the Government insists.

This was already closed with the previous leadership of the PP, and so Pedro Sánchez told Feijóo the only time they saw each other in La Moncloa.

Everything had to be closed before June 12, and it was easy, but the popular ones dragged their feet again and the Executive then decided to change the law to try to force the renewal.

Now the PP assures that it is willing to negotiate, but the Government is suspicious.

In La Moncloa they have been trying for four years, since the first failed renewal of 2018, and they no longer believe anything, so they trust that Lesmes complies with the law and achieves the renewal of the Constitutional.

Regarding the CGPJ, the Government does not have much hope: they believe that Feijóo has already decided to wait for the elections so that the new majority favors him.

But if there is a change in attitude, Bolaños has already said it publicly: "If they really want to renew, call me and we'll solve it in an afternoon."

The PP says that it does want to do it.

“Let's do it right, like always.

That the CGPJ appoints its two, that the Government does the same with its two without making an idiocy with the appointments, and let's replenish the Montoya plaza, ”says a popular leader at the highest level and aware of the strategy.

"It's his last chance.

If they consolidate the 7 to 4 and then they call us, we will say no”, he anticipates.

The PP also warns of what can happen if the Government goes ahead with its plans and the Constitutional Court is made up of seven progressive magistrates and five conservative ones.

Sources from the leadership warn that a part of the right would then begin to “not recognize itself” in the Constitutional Court.

Then, some of their media spokespersons could start a speech delegitimizing the high court, they estimate in the PP, with potentially catastrophic consequences for democratic institutions.

However, when the 7-4 went in favor of the conservatives, during part of 2020 and all of 2021, due to the resignation of a progressive magistrate accused of mistreatment in the family, there was no scandal in these sectors.

At one point there were even just three progressive justices.

Fed up in the Supreme

Meanwhile, in the judicial world they attend the political battle astonished.

The Supreme Court is already decimated by the blockade and the inability to fill vacancies.

It already has 14 empty seats out of a total of 79. The feeling of being fed up is widespread, according to members of its five rooms.

“They hurt us all.

Because the Council is not a judicial power, it is a political body.

But one thing is confused with another and the erosion of the system is enormous”, laments a magistrate.

The prevailing feeling in the country's main court is that the judiciary is being "mistreated as a whole" by political power.

"The Supreme wants to get out of the picture of Poland and Hungary in which they are putting us," warns another of its judges in reference to the two countries that are under the EU's scrutiny for their continuous breaches in terms of judicial independence, and with which the PP assiduously compares Spain.

What bothers the Supreme Court the most is that, by launching the suspicion that the opposing party wants to control the judiciary, they transfer the idea that the judges act "at the dictates" of one or the other.

“They start from the premise that there is no independent judge in Spain.

It is a lack of political culture about what a constitutional State is”, regrets a magistrate, who recalls that the function of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court is, precisely, to be “a counterweight” to political power to prevent abuses.

“This is a rupture with the constituent State of 78 ″, ditch him.

Some judges who in recent months remained more or less confident that the renewal of the Council would become effective sooner rather than later and would not damage the foundations of the Supreme Court, are already speaking of a "true tragedy."

All the judges consulted, of various sensitivities and some of them members of the conservative Professional Association of the Judiciary, place the greatest responsibility for the blockade on the PP.

So did Lesmes in his opening of the judicial year.

But the PSOE, for the majority of the magistrates, also bears a fundamental part of the blame, above all, for having allowed itself to be "dragged into the mud".

last speech

The two public interventions by Lesmes this week have been generally well received by the magistrates of the Supreme Court, of which he is also president, and all give credibility to his threat to resign and believe that he will do so "in weeks" if he proves that the bridges between PSOE and PP are definitely broken.

The general conclusion is that, whether there is a renewal or not, this Wednesday was his last opening speech of the judicial year.

“You cannot return next year to say the same thing or something similar before the same audience,” warns a judge who draws attention to the fact that, if there has been no renewal in September 2023, it will be three months before the current Council duplicates his five-year term.

“The law expressly prohibits members from repeating their mandate, but it would be repeating

”, he warns.

But Lesmes will not leave without first renewing the Constitutional.

It is the commitment that he has transferred in private.

The president of the CGPJ is convinced that he will achieve an agreement shortly, but in front of him he has those who were his own, the block of the hardest conservatives and closest to the guidelines of Génova Street.

Some members remember that Lesmes has always achieved what has been proposed in the CGPJ.

But his authority has been diluted —especially as a result of the Council being left without the power to make appointments— and now he has a problem: being able to make only those of the Constitutional Court, he cannot offer much to negotiate.

The battle should be resolved before September 29, when the CGPJ has scheduled its next ordinary plenary session.

If this time the PP manages to block it again, the Government insists that it has solution formulas that it still does not want to reveal.

And he could appoint the two Constitutional magistrates that correspond to him without waiting any longer, which would open a new battle.

Something as simple as bringing changes in majorities to renewals of organs, which is done with absolute normality when the PP comes to power, has become a nightmare when it is in opposition.

These are the decisive weeks to know who wins the final battle

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