Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in La Moncloa, last October.Andrea Comas
The Congress of Deputies hosts this Tuesday the usual celebrations of a completely unusual day of the Constitution.
In the historic building of Carrera de San Jerónimo, in the Pasos Perdidos hall, as every year, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the President of the Court will celebrate the Constitution together Constitutional, Pedro González-Trevijano, and that of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), Rafael Mozo, who is in the latter position on an interim basis since the resignation of his predecessor, Carlos Lesmes.
Everyone will pretend normality, but there will be nothing normal.
The CGPJ has completed four years since its mandate expired and the Constitutional Court has had four magistrates for five months with their expired position.
The Government already assumes that the PP will maintain the blockade to renew the CGPJ until the next general elections, when it will be five years, that is, a complete mandate of the governing body of the judiciary has expired, an unthinkable precedent.
This unprecedented constitutional anomaly is taken for granted, but now in the progressive sector —not only the CGPJ, but also the Constitutional Court and the Executive itself— it is feared that it could move on to another dimension of the constitutional crisis: an indefinite blockade as well. of the court itself that must guarantee compliance with the Constitution.
More information
The Constitutional Court is at the expense of the plenary of the Judiciary on December 22 to vote if they renew their two candidates
The Government has elected a week ago the two members that correspond to renew the 12 that make up the Constitutional, Juan Carlos Campo and Laura Díez, but at the moment there is not even a date for a plenary session to vote whether or not to give the placet to this renewal.
The conservative bloc, which has six magistrates from this court, including the president, Trevijano, has been blunt, according to various sources from the high court: it is against partial renewal: only the two magistrates that correspond to the Government, without waiting for both from the CGPJ.
Meanwhile, the five progressives, who are in the minority, have divided into two groups.
One, with three members, wanted to convene a plenary session to study the names proposed by the Government.
The other, with two, preferred to wait to see what happens on December 22,
However, the systematic blockade of a group of eight members of the CGPJ close to the PP, which is precisely what caused the resignation of Lesmes, a member of the conservative flank who left fed up with the maneuvers of his own colleagues, augurs a new failure. 22 in the renewal attempt.
And here comes the underlying problem.
In the event that a new fiasco was experienced on the 22nd, the most likely option at this time, the progressive Constitutional bloc would reunify immediately, according to court sources: the five magistrates are convinced that the partial renewal with the two would have to be accepted names proposed by the Government, because not doing so would imply an indefinite blockade and, above all, it would allow the insubordination of a group of the CGPJ to condition the entire renewal.
However, both in the progressive sector and in the Government, it is feared that the conservative sector of the Constitutional Court is willing to indefinitely extend the blockade in this court as well.
There all eyes turn to Trevijano.
He is precisely one of those who would have to be renewed because he was elected nine years ago by the Government, then in the hands of the PP.
There is no doubt that he is a conservative man, very close to the PP that elected him for this mandate.
But in some progressive sectors they still trust that he could unblock the situation if he changed his mind and joined the progressive wing after the 22nd, betting on renewal on the grounds that an indefinite blockade cannot be allowed.
That would change the majority with a 6-5 in favor of the renewal.
These sectors that trust in this movement appeal to a recent fact: Trevijano has received strong pressure from the PP, in public and in private, to promote the resolution of appeals to important laws such as abortion or the reform of the law of the Judiciary. that limited the ability to appoint judges of a CGPJ with an expired mandate.
Trevijano withstood these pressures and has maintained the Constitutional without making key decisions pending this renewal.
If the situation drags on, the blockade could be total, because a CGPJ without the capacity to renew various bodies would be joined by a Constitutional Court incapable of making relevant decisions, and all because of the blockade of eight members close to the PP who refuse to renew.
However, in other sectors of the progressive block and in the Government itself they fear that Trevijano will not change his mind and the blockade will become definitive in the two organizations.
In this group they believe that the PP is managing to pressure and control the two conservative blocks, both in the CGPJ and in the Constitutional, and they are preparing for a long blockade in both bodies.
In the background there is a very relevant issue, various judicial sources admit: the movement of the conservatives to prevent Cándido Conde-Pumpido from being the new president of the Constitutional Court.
The conservative sector is aware that the appointment of two magistrates in the Government quota will change the majority in favor of the progressives, in the same way that in 2013 the election by Mariano Rajoy de Trevijano and Enrique López, who later resigned for being fined for drunk driving, he changed the majority in favor of the conservatives without anyone speaking then of "Mariano Rajoy's assault on the Constitutional".
But this sector believes that, if it cannot avoid this change of majorities —although for the moment it has managed to delay it for six months,
right of veto
For this reason, various sources explain, the conservative block of the CGPJ is trying to have the right of veto over the progressive candidate for the Constitutional in the CGPJ.
Because he believes that if the chosen one were Pablo Lucas, instead of the one now proposed by the progressives, José Manuel Bandrés, he would never vote for Conde-Pumpido as president.
It is something that can never be explained publicly.
It is unthinkable that a candidate would be chosen based on who he would vote for as president, but various sources agree that this is what is at the bottom of the strange delaying maneuver of the conservatives, who reject the traditional formula, that is, that each The group proposes a name, and they raise the possibility of being able to choose between several names also from the other sector.
The skein is entangled, then, more and more with the background of that enormous blocking capacity that the PP and the conservative sector have shown up to now in order to avoid what has always happened normally: the change of majorities in favor of progressives and alternatively conservative based on the votes of the citizens, as happens in one way or another in almost all Western democracies.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I'm already a subscriber