Plenary session of the CGPJ last December.
The extraordinary plenary session convened this Thursday in the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to hit the table and draw attention to its precarious situation has ended up leaving the body more fragmented than any of the tense sessions that have been experienced in the last months.
The members had met in a monographic session to address the situation of the institution —pending renewal since December 2018— and the consequences that it is generating in the functioning of justice, especially in the Supreme Court, where 19 justices are missing. a total staff of 79. The body had on the table a proposal approved a few days ago by the permanent commission in which Congress and the Senate were urged to renew the CGPJ as soon as possible or, in the event that the blockade was maintained,
return the powers to fill the vacancies, but the majority of the body has rejected this initiative.
Nor has an alternative proposal gone ahead that advocated asking the Chambers that the CGPJ be able to appoint, at least, a minimum number of magistrates in the Supreme Court to guarantee its normal functioning.
The division within the plenary this time transcends the usual discord between conservatives and progressives that was consolidated throughout last autumn on account of the tortuous process to approve the appointment of two new magistrates of the Constitutional Court.
The proposals that were brought to a vote this Thursday have been supported and rejected by councilors of both sensibilities, and, in the end, none of the initiatives that have been submitted for debate has obtained the necessary majority to be approved and the plenary session has concluded without agreement. .
Members consulted admit that the impossibility of agreeing on even a statement on the problems that the judicial leadership is going through illustrates the seriousness of the situation.
The first proposal had been submitted to the plenary session by the permanent commission, which proposed submitting to Congress and the Senate the report of the technical office of the Supreme Court on the impact that the legal impossibility of making discretionary appointments causes for the activity of the high court, as well as such as the report of the technical services of the CGPJ on the existing vacancies in the National Court, the Superior Courts of Justice and the Provincial Courts.
The text urged Congress and the Senate to promote the immediate renewal of the Council and, if this does not take place, to return to the governing body of judges the competence to fill these vacancies.
Also this Thursday, the Council has agreed to ask the Superior Courts of Justice of the autonomous communities and the provincial courts to send it the resolutions issued in relation to the law of
only yes is yes,
around five thousand.
The proposal has received the votes of six of the seven members of the permanent (the progressives Rafael Mozo, Álvaro Cuesta and Pilar Sepúlveda and the conservatives Juan Manuel Fernández, Juan Martínez Moya and Nuria Díaz).
The progressive Roser Bach is the only non-permanent member who has seconded this proposal, while the other 11 have voted against it, including the conservative José Antonio Ballestero, who does belong to that commission.
The second of the proposals, by members Enrique Lucas (proposed by the PNV) and Gerardo Martínez Tristán (for the PP), also urged Congress and the Senate to renew the Council or to return to it its powers to make discretionary appointments. .
But he asked the Chambers that, meanwhile, the CGPJ be empowered to make discretionary appointments that make it possible to cover, at the proposal of the Governing Chamber of the Supreme Court, the minimum number of vacancies necessary to guarantee "the normal functioning" of its five chambers. .
The proposal has obtained the votes in favor of the two members who signed it and six other members (the conservatives Ballestero, Carmona, José María Macías, Carmen Llombart and Wenceslao Olea and the progressive Bach).
Concepción Sáez, also a progressive, voted blank,
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