Vicente Guilarte, substitute president of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), has grown tired of waiting in vain for the renewal of the governing body of the judges, whose mandate has expired for five years, and this Wednesday he harshly charged against the political parties for their inability to end this interim situation.
“They have caused a vicarious degradation of our profession.
"It is they [the politicians] who encourage this situation, who degrade themselves," he stated during the ceremony of handing over the offices to the 160 new members of the judicial career (the vast majority, 119, are women) in Barcelona.
On stage, the substitute president made it clear that today was, “predictably,” his “only and last intervention in these events.”
“You arrive at a cozy house to which I am saying goodbye,” he told the new judges.
Guilarte has already hinted in recent weeks that he is considering leaving office if the open negotiation between the PSOE and the PP to renew the body fails, with the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, as mediator.
CGPJ sources have been confirming this intention, although specifying that, foreseeably, the resignation would not be immediate once it was confirmed that there would be no renewal, but it would be in the coming months.
The interim president has not finalized his plan this Wednesday either, but he has not hidden his intention and has reiterated it in the presence of the King and the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños, who is directing the negotiation with the PP on behalf of the PSOE.
Sources close to the president confirm that his idea is to resign from office if the talks between the PSOE and the PP do not bear fruit.
Since last July, when he acceded to the interim presidency, Guilarte has assured, publicly and privately, that his main objective is to achieve renewal.
If the opportunity that has now been opened with the mediation of the European commissioner ends in failure again, Guilarte, according to these sources, feels that he no longer has anything to contribute.
The president, people around him say, has not set a deadline, but understands that at the beginning of July, once the European elections are over, everything should be resolved.
The message that Guilarte has launched has recalled the announcement made by the previous president of the CGPJ, Carlos Lesmes, at the opening of the judicial year of 2022, when, also before Felipe VI, he assured that he would leave office if the parties did not unblock the renewal of urgently.
PSOE and PP did not then sit down to negotiate, and Lesmes complied with his warning and resigned a few weeks later, on October 9 of that year.
His departure did provoke an immediate reaction from the President of the Government, who called Alberto Nuñez Feijóo to open a new renewal attempt.
The conversations flowed and everything seemed closed, but the PP distanced itself from the pact at the last moment, alleging that the PSOE was going to reform the Penal Code to eliminate the crime of sedition.
The negotiation between the PSOE and the PP is still very green and no one dares to bet on there being an agreement.
The negotiators of each party, Bolaños and the deputy general secretary of the PP, Esteban González Pons, met for the first time with Reyndes on January 31.
They had planned to do it again last Monday, but the appointment has been postponed to next Monday the 19th, because Pons was sick.
In addition to slipping the possibility of leaving, the president of the body regretted this Wednesday that the parties have not managed to unblock the Judiciary and has admitted that he appears before the new judges "with a very light legitimizing scaffolding": he is the substitute president " for long-lived,” he said, a kind of “gerontocracy” that “may not be the best system.”
Guilarte has defended the renewal of the CPJG as a way to preserve judicial independence.
“The independence of the judiciary requires that politics address the renewal of the CGJP for the general interest.
There is nothing more contrary than inserting this renewal, as it has been happening for five years, in the scope of partisan debate.”
Despite the inability of the parties, he has expressed confidence that “a last door of hope” will bring “a successful conclusion” to that long-awaited renewal.
Regarding the independence between the legislative and judicial powers, he has warned that this operates in two directions.
“Independence is, basically, isolation from the influence of other powers of the State. And independence, the guarantee of citizens, is bidirectional: neither do I influence political activity (never be tempted to do so) nor do I want them to influence in mine".
Guilarte has warned that the CGPJ will be “vigilant against any attack [on that independence], wherever it comes from.”
The King (in the center) before the family photo with the new judges, this Wednesday in Barcelona.David Zorrakino (Europa Press)
The King asks to preserve judicial independence
The substitute president had a few words of recognition for the two civil guards murdered in the port of Barbate (Cádiz) after being attacked by a drug boat, a blow that reminded him of "the fiercest times of ETA."
“You must always support the men and women who, even risking their lives, look out for all of us,” he said before the 160 judges of the 72nd class went on stage to receive their dispatches, which enable them to take their places.
The average age of new judges is 28 years old.
After the judges' parade, the King closed the event with a speech in which he congratulated them and also reminded them of their obligation to preserve judicial independence as one of the pillars of the Rule of Law.
The Monarch, who has also paid tribute to the deceased civil guards, has warned that “everyone must preserve and respect” the independence of justice.
“Without independent justice, there would be no democratic political community.”
Hours later, in a message on the social network
The Association Judges and Judges for Democracy (JJpD) has denounced, once the delivery of dispatches has concluded, that the presidency of the event has been established without the presence of women.
“Inexplicably, and endorsing our complaints of gender discrimination, such a table is made up exclusively of people of the male gender, ignoring the demands of equality and the reality of the judicial career and society,” points out the association, with a progressive tendency, a release.
JJpD recalls that, in the latest promotions, seven out of ten members are women, in addition to the fact that 60% of the judicial career is made up of women.
“The CGPJ forgets all this, it fails to comply with its own equality policies,” laments the association, for whom the Judicial School “is co-responsible for this inexplicable and unjustified departure.”
King Felipe VI (in the center) accompanied, from left to right, by the president of the General Council of the Judiciary, Vicente Guilarte);
the Minister of Justice and the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, this Wednesday.Quique García (EFE)
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