Four judges of the Constitutional Court, including its president, should be replaced within 10 days by four new members. It won’t be like that.
In the umpteenth episode of delay in the renewal of institutions, the PSOE and the PP will miss the deadline to elect the successors of Cándido Conde-Pumpido, María Luisa Balaguer, Ricardo Enríquez and José María Macías.
With the anticipation established by law, Conde-Pumpido requested last August from the Senateto which the renewal corresponds at that time, which will begin the process of appointing new magistrates.
The Upper House has done nothing so far. And that, unlike previous processes, we now know that Spain risks another setback from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for not having done their homework in terms of institutional renovation.
The ECtHR condemned the Spanish State in June 2023 for not develop the legally established procedure for choosing to the members of the General Council of the Judicial Power (CGPJ) in the phase preceding the vote of Parliament. The CGPJ change already accumulated then almost five years late and would not occur until July 2024.
Senate sources indicated that This week, the Council will address the regional assemblies propose candidates for the TC. Everyone can cite the name of two candidates, who must be judges or prosecutors, university professors, public officials or lawyers, all jurists of recognized competence and having more than fifteen years of professional practice.
The deadline for submitting proposals will in principle be two months, but it has already been extended several times. This means that, initially, the renewal will no longer take place on time.
Worse still: we do not know when this will take place, because at this stage, we do not perceive any desire for dialogue between the PSOE and the PP, who must necessarily reach a consensus, because the appointment of members of the TC requires a qualified majority of three-fifths. This is equivalent to 160 votes.
The PP currently has 145 seats in the Senate out of a total of 266. It would reach 149 if we add the three of Vox and that of the UPN.
Government and PP sources admit that there is no conversation. According to the first, the PP “does not want to negotiate anything in this legislature”.
They add that Feijóo’s party “fantasizes” about reaching the required 160 votes. —alone or with Vox— after the next general elections, which would allow them to appoint the four magistrates and, thus, give a reversal in the balance of power to the Constitutional Court.
The TC currently has a majority of seven progressive judges against five conservatives. If a scenario of appointment by the PP of the four magistrates appointed by the Senate occurred, the majority would become conservative in the same proportion of seven to five.
Although this result ultimately does not happen, the option of waiting is “the most viable for the PP”, indicate sources from the Constitutional Court, where it is assumed that the renewal will be delayed. sine die.
They explain that a consensus in the Senate that would go through what has always been done (the reprehensible “distribution of cards” in which each force appoints two magistrates) would be criticized by Vox and would not be well seen by certain sectors of the PP, who would emphasize that the agreement would favor Pedro Sánchez: the progressive bloc would retain the majority and, therefore, could impose the president.
End the amnesty
“The PP has no interest in a 2-2 agreement,” we admit to the TC, which is preparing to complete, with the current composition and Condé-Pumpido in the lead, the controversial application of the amnesty law.
After the declaration of constitutionality of the amnesty law with the divide between the progressive and conservative sectors, the TC has on the table the remedies for the protection of the people pursued by the process from whom the Supreme Court did not exonerate criminal responsibility for having been convicted (Oriol Junqueras, Jordi Turull) or prosecuted (Carles Puigdemont) for embezzlement of public funds intended for the illegal 1-O referendum.
It is expected that next January the requests for provisional suspension of the decision of the criminal chamber will be rejected, which means that the former Catalan president will not be able to return to Spain without risking being arrested before the merits of his complaint are resolved.
The TC will, however, not respond to these requests before the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) rules on the preliminary questions raised on the amnesty of the process by the Court of Auditors and the National Court.