The members of the Judiciary to its president: "If you continue hiding you will force us to make decisions that I do not want"

The request of five members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to analyze in an extraordinary plenary session the salary increase agreed between the Government and the judges has resulted in a tremendous internal row in which some counselors have even threatened to force the departure of Rafael Mozo, the alternate president of a body that has been in office since December 2018. During the weekend there was already tension between the members because, according to sources of the organ, Mozo remained silent despite the continuous interpellations to specify if he was going to convene the plenary session and on what date. But the brawl broke out on Monday, when the president announced that the extraordinary plenary session would be held on Wednesday, contrary to what the members who signed the petition had claimed. These councilors demanded that the meeting be before Tuesday, the day appointed for the government and the judges to sign their agreement. "The call is untimely and unacceptable (...) If you continue hiding, you will force us to make decisions that I do not want, snapped in an internal chat the vocal Enrique Lucas, say sources of the organ.

The same members who had demanded that the plenary session be convened later requested in writing that it be disconvened and Mozo canceled Wednesday's appointment and incorporated the analysis of the agreement between the Government and the judges in the ordinary plenary session of this Thursday. The session is angry because some members have already warned that they will reproach Mozo face to face what they already told him in the chat in which the 17 current members of the CGPJ are.

The reconstruction of the statements made by the members on Monday in private shows that the always latent tension in the governing body of the judges has run amok to become a harsh exchange of reproaches. The vocal Lucas, lawyer proposed by in 2013 by the PNV to be part of the CGPJ and usually attached to the progressive sector, was one of the most critical with the decision of Mozo, although not the only one who was implacable with the alternate president. Lucas is also one of the five councilors who signed the petition for an extraordinary plenary session (the other four were José Antonio Ballestero, Carmen Llombart, Gerardo Martínez Tristán and José María Macías, all proposed by the PP). Mozo, magistrate of the National Court now dedicated exclusively to the Council, only half-attended that request. He called the session because he is obliged by law to do so if five or more members claim it in writing, but he did not agree to set it for Monday, as they requested, but indicated it on Wednesday and took to that same day the ordinary plenary session of the body that was to be held on Thursday.

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The criticism of this decision came for two reasons: because the session had been requested to analyze the salary agreement before it was signed and because the members alleged that they had already organized their agenda for Thursday's plenary session and those who live outside Madrid had closed travel reservations for those days. Mozo, although he participated little in the chat, also alleged to those who spoke with him that the celebration of two plenary sessions the same week doubled the expense of the CGPJ, since most of the members do not have exclusive dedication and charge a diet of 975 euros to attend the plenary sessions. In addition, he maintained that the law gave him 72 hours to convene the extraordinary plenary session since the petition was registered on Friday and that the weekend is non-working and the deadline expired on Wednesday. This was the decision that led to a dispute that, according to sources, has not been closed and threatens to heat up the plenary session on Thursday.

Lucas accused Mozo of acting with "disrespect" and "breaching" his obligation to convene the plenary session on Monday. He demanded that the extraordinary plenary session be held that day telematically and the ordinary one on Thursday and he was unhappy not to have answered during the weekend to the messages of the members. "Rafa, show your face at once," the member claimed to Mozo, according to sources of the organ. "If you continue to hide and do not listen to what I tell you, you will force us to make decisions that I would not want to be adopted," he warned, a statement that members of the plenary interpreted as a threat to remove the alternate president.

The vocal Macías, lawyer, one of the most prominent representatives of the conservative sector and also signatory of the plenary petition on Monday, reproached Mozo for summoning them to a session on Wednesday when he already knew that that day it was "useless" to analyze the salary agreement because it would already be signed. "He laughs at me and my time," he said, after reproaching the president for being "impolite" for not responding to messages over the weekend. "What a way to say goodbye," Macias said in reference to Mozo, who has less than two months left to turn 72, the mandatory retirement age for judges.

Also involved in the discussion was the vocal Vicente Guilarte, lawyer, proposed by the PP for the CGPJ and who aspires to succeed Mozo because he is the oldest counselor after the alternate president. "This doesn't make any sense," he said of the decision to set the plenary session on Wednesday, reminding her that the logical thing to do was to point it out before Tuesday. Guilarte maintained that convening the plenary session for after that day was, in practice, a breach by Mozo. And he made a simile that organ sources remember: "The tailor who delivers the wedding suit the day after the wedding, does not incur in default, but fails to fulfill his obligation."

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