The Constitutional Court has rejected, after half past ten at night this Wednesday, again by 6 votes to 5, the appeals presented against its decision to paralyze the legislative process derived from the precepts with which the PSOE and Podemos have wanted to unblock the Judiciary and the guarantee court itself.
Therefore, not only the numerical result of last Monday is repeated, but the iron alignment of the conservative sector of the Constitutional with the claims of the PP, against a progressive bloc made up of five magistrates who failed to get even one of the petitions approved. formulated by the Senate, Congress and the Attorney General's Office.
Among these requests was that the legislative process could be resumed without altering the will of the majority of the chambers.
The Congress of Deputies and the Senate have presented this Wednesday two separate pleadings against the suspension of the legislative process of the reform that facilitates the renewal of the Constitutional Court, blocked for five months by conservative members of the General Council of the Judiciary elected to PP proposal.
The Constitutional Court urgently convened a plenary session to debate these allegations.
The Constitutional Court Prosecutor's Office joined the writings of Congress and the Senate, which requested the recusal of magistrates Trevijano and Narváez, both appointed by the Government of Mariano Rajoy in June 2013 and whose mandate has expired since June 2022. .
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The appeal of the Senate alleged "defencelessness" after Monday the guarantee body agreed to paralyze the legislative process of the legal reforms that seek to facilitate the renewal of the court itself, without having given Congress a hearing.
The conservative majority of the Constitutional Court acted in this expeditious —and unprecedented— way by accepting the request of the PP to apply a very precautionary measure, consisting of said suspension of the voting that would affect the two amendments presented by the PSOE and Podemos, already converted in part of the law approved in Congress.
In turn, the Constitutional Court Prosecutor's Office, a person in the case on the suspension of the legislative processing of the Government's legal reform to renew the guarantee body, registered another letter this Wednesday in which it supports the recusal of magistrates Pedro González -Trevijano and Antonio Narváez.
"This Prosecutor's Office," the brief states, "deems appropriate that the plenary session of the Court address the treatment [of the incidents of recusal] prior to deciding on the Senate's claim and any other subsequent procedural step that must be carried out in the present procedure”.
The president of the guarantee court, Pedro González-Trevijano, convened the extraordinary plenary session shortly after receiving the Senate's appeal at midmorning, consisting of its first allegations against last Monday's decision.
The central object of the plenary session was from the outset to study whether, as the Senate has requested, the agreed precautionary measure should be annulled.
The plenary session was convened at seven in the afternoon, so that the parties —Congress and the parties represented, mainly the PSOE and Podemos, as appealed— could present their allegations before five.
From the outset, it was known that in the face of this appeal by the Senate, the group of progressive Constitutional magistrates had decided to fight again for the court to allow debates on legal reforms to unblock the Judiciary and the body of guarantees itself. celebrate without interference.
The conservative group, on the other hand, remained determined to support the claims of the PP.
These claims are found in the writ of extension of their appeal that the popular presented on Saturday, in which they challenged the entire parliamentary process of the new legislation, and requested that the very precautionary measure be directed against the whole of the parliamentary process.
Judge María Luisa Balaguer already exposed, in statements made to EL PAÍS on Tuesday, that she considered it wrong to apply to the Senate some measures requested in the amparo appeal presented as aimed at paralyzing the parliamentary debate in Congress.
In its appeal, the Senate first highlights in its allegations that "the suspension decreed by the Constitutional Court —an unprecedented decision of the utmost importance— directly affects a body, the Senate, which has not adopted the agreements that are the subject of the appeal of protection”.
The legal services of the Upper House explain that "in this circumstance, the Senate and its members considered individually are defenseless, under the terms of article 24 of the Constitution, when adopting the suspension measure
inaudita parte
[without listening to the parties] and being the document that is now challenged by means of the present allegations the first formal notice on the constitutional protection procedure”.
In the opinion of the Senate, the suspension decreed by the court "is untimely."
The appeal adds that the court "should have adopted its decision at the time the organic law proposal was being processed in the Congress of Deputies, before the vote in the plenary session of said Chamber on the afternoon of the 15th of December 2022. But he didn't."
Only before the vote by the plenary session of that Chamber could the adoption of the measure that is now being challenged have taken place, explains the appeal.
serious disturbance
The letter stresses that the suspension also causes "a particularly serious disturbance in the fundamental rights of all senators (and the majority of deputies)."
He then explains that said disturbance occurs in terms of the exercise of parliamentary office protected by article 23.2 of the Constitution.
The Senate ended by asking the Constitutional Court to immediately and in any case before today, since this is the date scheduled for the debate, "rescind said precautionary measure of suspension, in order to enable due parliamentary processing in this Camera".
Congress adhered to the allegations raised by the Senate in the Constitutional.
In the allegations signed by the lawyers of the Congress, it was stressed that they are asked to defend their functions without knowing the foundations of the Constitutional order and, above all, the autonomy of the legislative capacity of the Cortes is defended.
Congress maintains that with the aforementioned suspension, "a serious disturbance to a State function" has been caused, reports
Javier Casqueiro.
Once the Constitutional pronouncement was known, the Minister of Education and PSOE spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, stated on Cadena SER: “It is inconceivable that Parliament is not allowed to vote on a law.
It is a very serious situation”.
The spokesperson in the PP Congress, Cuca Gamarra, stated on Twitter: “It is time to respect the resolutions.
The Government must abandon the disqualifications of the TC and return to the path of State agreements that the PP has offered it.