PSOE and PP open the way in Brussels to renew the Judiciary and the European Commission trusts in an agreement

This time, with the unprecedented mediation of the European Commission, it can be serious.

This Wednesday in Brussels, the PSOE and the PP opened the way to restart their negotiations and renew the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), with the mandate having expired five years ago.

The PP has backed down three times in these five years with the agreement already practically closed, but the socialists are confident that this time, with pressure from the European Commission, the passage of time after months of disagreements and the judges waiting appointments, the ending is different.

The Popular Party has blocked the renewal for five years, and with this they maintain a conservative majority in the CGPJ that obeys a Cortes elected in 2011, when the PP had an absolute majority.

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Reynders emphasizes that the mediation of the European Commission seeks to “reform, not just renew” the CGPJ

The Minister of Justice and Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the deputy secretary of institutional action of the PP, Esteban González Pons, met this Wednesday in Brussels with the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, to try to unravel the governing body of the judges, one of the main concerns about Spain of the Community Executive.

The situation is already very difficult to sustain for Spain - which has received various warnings for violations of the rule of law - and for its judicial system on the verge of collapse due to the lack of renewal.

The Commission, which has agreed to mediate in a crucial matter because it trusts that the parties will reach an agreement, has summoned Bolaños and González Pons to a new meeting on February 12.

“There has been a clear commitment from all parties to work together,” Reynders said in an agreed statement.

With the mediation letter from Brussels, which the PP proposed and the Government quickly accepted, and the fact that the mandate comes from as high as the European Commission, the Executive hopes to help the PP have a political cushion to assume. a pact with the PSOE that rejects both Vox and important sectors of the right in a very angry legislature dominated by the amnesty law for those responsible for the

process

.

“This time has to be the final one,” Bolaños stated at the end of the meeting in Brussels, where he assured that there is “maximum willingness” on the part of Pedro Sánchez's Government to reach an agreement.

“It is essential for Spain, for institutional normality that we reach an agreement and renew, for our part it will not be the case,” added the Minister of Justice.

The Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, after the meeting with the PP in Brussels about the renewal of the CGPJ this Wednesday. Delmi Álvarez

The European Commission has long been calling on Spain to unblock the renewal of the judges' body, the main black point in reports on the rule of law.

This Wednesday, after the meeting with Bolaños and Pons, she was once again very clear: Spain must "proceed as a priority to the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary and begin, immediately after the renewal, a process with a view to adapting the appointment of its judge-members, taking into account European standards on Judicial Councils,” Reynders said in his statement in which he urged a “constructive dialogue.”

The socialists believe that the solution would be simple if there is political will: return to the agreement that the PSOE and the PP had already practically closed in October 2022, when the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, backed out, arguing that he could not agree on anything. with Pedro Sánchez because he was preparing to modify the crime of sedition.

In that pact, not only the correlation of forces of the new council and the names of the councilors, with non-political profiles, were agreed upon, in addition to some rules to guarantee greater depoliticization, but also a formula to satisfy the PP's will to open the debate. on changing the election system: both groups would present a joint bill in which Congress urged the CGPJ to prepare a report on possible modifications to the election system so that the Cortes could study it and make a decision.

The current model, which the PP modified precisely in 2013 with its absolute majority, already includes an important participation of the judges in the renewal, since Congress has to select 12 CGPJ members from a list of 36 chosen by the magistrates themselves.

But there is no direct election of judges, as the PP wants and the PSOE rejects.

The socialists estimate a majority conservative bias in the race and there would always be a CGPJ leaning to the right regardless of what citizens vote, something that neither the PSOE nor Sumar accept from a democratic point of view.

Nor is it common in other European countries, where there are models of all kinds, including several in which politics has much more presence than in Spain.

González Pons has introduced the amnesty as an element that complicates the agreement.

This is something on which the Commission, which is awaiting the presentation and approval of the corresponding amendments to give its opinion, does not seem to agree.

“We are in a context in which the amnesty law is delegitimizing the Judiciary by the Government and that influences the conversations we are going to have,” said the institutional vice-secretary of the PP, who has not hesitated to manifest as “very pessimistic”.

The deputy secretary of Institutional Action of the PP, Esteban González Pons, after the meeting between PP and PSOE on the renewal of the CGPJ.PABLO GARRIGÓS (EFE)

The consequences of the blockade are already noticeable.

The lack of renewal of the CGPJ - the governing body of all judges in Spain, made up of 20 members: 12 judges and eight jurists of recognized prestige and a president elected by the members - has already caused significant damage to the Supreme Court: almost a third of its staff of magistrates (retired or deceased during this time) have not been able to be replaced.

This has resulted in 1,000 fewer sentences being handed down each year, according to the latest statistics from the Council of the Judiciary.

The Supreme Court is, in some of its rooms, in a situation on the verge of collapse.

The renewal of its members, whose last word corresponds to Parliament, requires the support of three-fifths of the Chambers, and, therefore, the pact between the two main parties, PSOE and PP, is essential.

The PP demands that the 12 judges be elected directly by the members of the judicial career, thus taking away all decision-making power from Parliament.

Its blockade, which it has maintained for five years, implies that the current CGPJ (which corresponds to the time when the Popular Party had an absolute majority) with an expired mandate, has an absolute majority of conservative members, converted into a political battering ram against the Executive.

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