After almost two decades at the head of the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León, José Luis Concepción announced in September that he was retiring from his mandate at the Autonomous Superior Court. He did this despite having been in interim office since September 2021, three additional years in office due to the years-long blockade in the General Council of the Judiciary, resolved last June. However, the Official State Gazette published this Tuesday the announcement of the call for this position “due to the expiration of the mandate of the previously appointed person”.
As soon as the announcement is published in the BOE, candidates have 20 calendar days to submit their application. Among the requirements, in addition to a merit competition, will be taken into account people belonging to the judicial career with the category of magistrate in an administrative situation of active service or special services who, on the date of publication of the call. They have ten years of service in the category and have been in the judicial career for at least fifteen years.
José Luis Concepción’s final years as head of the TSJCyL will be remembered for the many controversies he generated because of his statements, with frequent attacks against the government and the left in particular. In his last intervention, on September 20, 2024, during the opening ceremony of the judicial year, he assured that “the judges are encouraged by the public authorities, who do nothing other than apply the law promulgated by Parliament, with defamation, and even through the exercise of criminal actions known in advance and which cannot succeed, with the sole objective of diverting attention from facts which may deserve normative reproach. Also, with a clear objective of delegitimization in anticipation of an unfavorable resolution.”
With these words, Concepción added an additional attack against the progressive government. The current president of the TSJCyL has a long history of political activism, since the member of the Permanent Commission of the General Council of the Judiciary Concepción Sáez criticized him for demanding disciplinary measures by comparing the Nazis to the Communist Party in 2022 in a interview at the Burgos Newspaper. His “uninhibited interventions in public debates make him an activist serving ideological particularities,” said the MP. From this and numerous statements, the CGPJ preferred to file complaints, considering them as “personal opinions on a certain political party”. The promoter of the disciplinary action emphasized that Concepción did not commit any offense provided for by law because he was protected by freedom of expression and that he did not use his position to incur “serious contempt and objective towards citizens” when referring to the Communist Party. Spanish Festival.
This is not the only criticism of the PCE to his credit, assured the magistrate in an interview. “A country’s democracy is called into question since the Communist Party is part of the government”in reference to the fact that the PCE is part of IU, member of Unidas Podemos, partner of the government since 2019. He made this statement after being asked if it suited the vice president of the government, Pablo Iglesias, to “question” the democratic quality of Spain.
The magistrate was also critical in 2019 of the exhumation of dictator Francisco Franco. For Concepción, the act “changes or transmutes into resentment the harmony that has existed in this country since 1978” and is the consequence of the “perverse” law of historical memory. In an interview with Northern Castilethe judge indicated that this norm, approved in 2007, “regenerates hatred” between Spaniards and attempts to “rewrite history”. Concepción defined exhumation as a feeling of “sadness.”
The highest representative of the judiciary of Castilla y León also indicted in May 2020 in an interview with Wave zero against the state of alarm decreed by the Government due to the pandemic situation. Concepción assured that “the state of alarm allows us to limit rights but not to suspend them, and we Spaniards have suspended certain fundamental rights.”
In addition, the magistrate clarified, from a legal point of view, that “the state of alert is used for something other than what the law of 81 allows, that is to say occasionally restricting a right in the exclusive aim of stopping an epidemic, and not of legislating outside the walls of the needs caused by the epidemic. Also during the pandemic, Concepción accused the executive of “hiding” the death toll.
This occasion was not the only one to accuse the government. Concepción opposed the amnesty law as he expressed at the opening of the 2023 judicial year. The president of the TSJCyL indicated that granting amnesty to “seditious” would be “a blessing of conduct carried out with the aim of destroying Spain, attacking the Constitution and admitting that the criminal response given with the law in hand was unjust.
Concepción Sáez, member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), on the proposal of Izquierda Unida, sent to the president of the judiciary at the time, Carlos Lesmes, “governmental and disciplinary measures” against the president of the Superior Court of justice of Castile and León, José Luis Concepción, which were not taken into account.
Beyond the controversial statements, criticism has also been leveled at his handling of the courts. In March 2023, the president of Court No. 4 of Ávila, Tomás Sánchez Puente, accused the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León of suggesting that he take medical leave to carry out his sentences.
In a thread on Twitter, Sánchez Puente assured that after informing him of the problem of overloading his court, Concepción told him: “And why don’t you ask for medical leave and take advantage of it not to obtain convictions? Regarding possible repercussions, Sánchez Puente said that since the conversation took place by telephone, “the president of the Superior Court of Justice of Castilla y León has the possibility of filing a complaint against me for defamation, with the probability of obtaining success of cause.” He and I both know that’s how it was,” he said.
The only “slap on the wrist” to José Luis Concepción, it was in May 2020, following his criticism of the state of alarm. The president of the CGPJ at the time, Carlos Lesmes, sent him a letter demanding “moderation, prudence and restraint”.
Concepción presides not only over the TSJ, but also over the courtroom, where politicians with immunity go to commit any crime. As published by elDiario.es, Concepción has benefited in recent years from an official car given to him by the Junta de Castilla y León, an unusual concession that arose due to the magistrate’s discomfort with the cars that the Ministry of Justice Justice provides presidents of superior courts who were not to its liking.
