The appointment of former Minister Campo that the PP denounces before Brussels is common in France, Germany, Italy and Belgium

Laurent Fabius was prime minister under France's first modern-era socialist president, François Mitterrand.

Almost two decades later, another socialist head of state, François Hollande, appointed him in 2016 president of the Constitutional Council, the French equivalent of the Spanish Constitutional Court.

At the time, Fabius was French Foreign Minister.

Nobody tore their clothes.

Nor did they do so when, a year later, the new Élysée tenant, Emmanuel Macron, appointed a member of the guarantee court, Nicole Belloubet, as Justice Minister for his first term.

In neighboring Italy, a country of political upheavals, two-time Prime Minister Giuliano Amato has just concluded his term as president of the Constitutional Court without controversy.

The Popular Party now denounces before Brussels as an "institutional assault" the appointment of former Justice Minister Juan Carlos Campo and Laura Díez, until six months ago general director of Constitutional Affairs in La Moncloa.

But the comings and goings between politics and the institution that watches over the laws have not only happened before in Spain (and with the PP in the Government): they are common in Europe and even in the judicial body that supervises the laws of the Twenty-seven, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

"Constitutional courts are a creation of the 20th century, they were conceived mainly to guarantee control of the constitutionality of parliamentary laws," recalls Daniel Sarmiento, a lawyer and law professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, with extensive experience in law in the European Union.

Hence, he emphasizes, even in some EU countries it is even "required" that there be judges "with political experience" in these courts.

There they are, he points out, Belgium or Germany, where it is normal for there to be former ministers or deputies in their constitutional courts.

In the Belgian case, it is even stipulated by law.

The Belgian Constitutional regulation requires that, of the 12 judges that make up its court of guarantees, three of them are chosen "on the basis of having at least five years of experience as members of Parliament."

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Commissioner for Justice, the Belgian Didier Reynders, was quite calm when, this week, he was asked his opinion on the subject: "It is not the only country in which this situation occurs ”, pointed out in this regard who until his arrival at the European Commission held high positions in the Belgian Government – ​​he was even deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

For the moment, neither the Commissioner for Justice nor the Vice President of the Commission and Commissioner for Transparency, Věra Jourová, have commented on the letter sent to them by the spokesperson for the PP in Europe, Dolors Montserrat, and the president of the Popular Party European Union (EPP), the German Manfred Weber.

According to the popular

Weber's signature on the PP's letter has caused some astonishment.

After all, the presence of politicians in the

, the German Constitutional, is also normalized.

The only thing that the German court stipulates is that whoever is appointed as a judge immediately abandons any seat that he may occupy at the federal or

level .

The current president of the German Constitutional Court, Stephan Harbarth, is also a party mate of Weber's: before assuming the leadership of the

he was for years a deputy for the Christian-Democratic party CDU, in whose Bavarian branch, the CSU, the current president of the EPP is a member. .

Sarmiento does not believe that the "complaint" of the PP-PPE will have a great echo in Brussels.

“The EU ensures that States have minimum standards to guarantee the independence and non-politicization of their courts, including constitutional ones, but they are 'minimum' standards.

As a general rule, Brussels has been very cautious on these issues, since, in addition, the Union's competence in this field is limited, ”he points out.

Hence, he advances, it is most likely that the European Commission will not take any action in this regard.

“The case law of the Court of Justice is designed for very extreme cases, such as that of Poland.

This is not, by far, the case of Spain ”, he underlines in reference to the struggle that Warsaw maintains with Brussels and Luxembourg, headquarters of the CJEU.

This court ordered Poland a year ago to pay the European Commission a fine of one million euros a day for not stopping the activity of its controversial disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court, an instance that according to the European Commission undermines the independence of Polish magistrates.

Even in the CJUE, the presence of politicians on its bench is common.

Like that of the Luxembourg judge François Biltgen, who held the Justice portfolio of this small European State until just before putting on the court gown that ensures compliance with the laws of the Twenty-seven.

The first Spanish precedent for appointment with a prior political position dates back to 1995, when Felipe González appointed Manuel Jiménez de Parga as constitutional magistrate, who had been a constituent deputy for the UCD and Minister of Labor with Adolfo Suárez years before.

The Government of Sánchez is not even a pioneer in the election of magistrates for the Constitutional Court with political trajectories: in the last renewal, that of 2013, the popular ones also chose two very political names: Enrique López, current Justice Minister of Madrid and a strong man history of the PP in the world of justice, and Francisco José Hernando, now deceased, then president of the General Council of the Judiciary and a conservative reference and opposition to the Government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

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