The covenant signed by PSOE and PP to subsequently renew the General Council for the Judiciary more than five years of blockade It is not much different from the agreement they already examined at the end of 2022. But then Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party left the table, claiming that they could not reach an agreement with Pedro Sánchez after withdrawing the crime of sedition. Just like two years ago, the text considers measures such as regulating the revolving doors between politics and justice, raising the bar for judges who want to enter the Supreme Court or creating a commission to examine possible changes in the system of electing members .
Twenty years to go before the Supreme Court. The 2022 agreement It was never written down with the signature of both parties, but the measures were essentially the same as those reinforcing the agreement announced this week to renew the judges' governing body. The requirement that candidates for the Supreme Court must have twenty years of practical experience to join the court is identical, for example a red line that Carlos Lesmes, among others, would have omitted at the time. The PP's first demands in 2022 even set the bar at 25 years.
Appointments by a three-fifths majority. The requirement that some Council agreements must be reached by three-fifths of the plenary session and not by a simple majority is also the same to reinforce the need for agreements when taking these types of decisions. This concerns both the appointment of presidents of provincial courts, which currently have three dozen vacancies, and of the Supreme Court magistrate in charge of overseeing the investigative activities of the National Intelligence Center.
Study the reform of the system. It is also not new that agreement has been reached on the establishment of a committee within the Governing Body of Judges to examine future reforms to the system for electing members. From Europe, the demand has always been the same: that the CGPJ be renewed and that these changes be later analyzed to bring them into line with community standards. The agreement signed this week by PSOE and PP requires the Council to “conduct a study on European systems for the election of members to similar bodies” and submit a legislative proposal within six months.
It is something identical to what the PP postulated in a document in October 2022: “Proposal to strengthen judicial independence and democratic quality in Spain.” This pact proposal included ordering “a reform proposal to the new CGPJ” to be implemented “within a non-extendable period of six months”, the same proposal that is now being imposed.
The revolving doors. The strictest regulation of the revolving doors between justice and politics, the coming and going of deputies or ministers of Congress and Moncloa to the courts, It also appeared in that first agreement where some points are formulated differently or less specifically. For example, in October 2022, the document proposed by the PP already included a clause to regulate cases like that of Dolores Delgado and prevent “those who have held political positions in the past five years” from holding the position of lawyer. general.
The agreement reached this week is along the same lines and is more specific in terms of the political positions it refers to: neither ministers, nor secretaries of state, nor counselors, nor mayors. Neither Members of the European Parliament, Deputies, Senators or Regional Delegates. The new agreement adds that the attorney general will be subject to the same grounds for abstention as judges and that the final say will be the council of prosecutors. This same ban on holding the same political positions also applies to Council members and already appeared in 2022 under the demands of the PP.
It is also regulated the return of judges or magistrates to the courts after his practice in politics. If they have worked as a civil servant or in a position of trust 'with a rank higher than the Director General', they will not be able to return to active duty until two years after leaving. If they apply for readmission, they will be “assigned” for those two years to the president of the highest court in the region where they served before entering politics, but without their salaries being reduced. At the end of 2022, the agreement was very similar and focused on one of the functions: they could not impose penalties in those two years after their return.
Vowels that repeat themselves. The twelve members of judicial descent come from the same list of candidates that was launched in 2018 when the mandate of the current Council expired. And this week they have repeated many of those who already sounded like the best positioned from either party to join. Even when they were close to the pact again in 2022. As for the eight lawyers, some names such as Luis Martín Contreras or Bernardo Fernández have remained since 2018.
The layoffs. There is a demand in that document that does not appear in the pact that the PP ultimately signed with Pedro Sánchez's PSOE: the reversal of the CGPJ's ban on making appointments to the judicial leadership while its mandate has expired. “It must be withdrawn in its entirety and not only with regard to the TC,” said those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo shortly before leaving the table for the sedition reform. The agreement released this week does not include that requirement.
The PP's claims in 2022 also include a series of fundamental points that are not included in the new pact signed with the PSOE to renew the governing body of the judges. For example, that the negotiations took place in the Cortes Generales, while they took place between the two main parties with the mediation of Europe.