PP asks Constitutional Court for Pumpido to depart from Campo’s abstentions in amnesty

The Popular Party filed this Friday with the Constitutional Court a document in which it asks the president, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, not to participate in the abstention incident of the magistrate and former minister Juan Carlos Campo in the appeals against the amnesty that must be debated in plenary session next Tuesday. As reported yesterday by ABC, despite his recusal, Conde-Pumpido assumed the presentation of this abstention in the appeals of unconstitutionality, leaving aside the speaker of the main appeal, which is precisely the appeal of unconstitutionality of the PP, the conservative magistrate José María Macías. The popular demands that neither he nor the other contested, the former high-ranking government official Laura Díez, participate in any matter relating to amnesty until their own problems are solved.

“In the constitutive document of this trial (the appeal for unconstitutionality), we have pointed out objective circumstances which deprive the two magistrates of the necessary appearance of impartiality (…). Maximum care and requirements are imposed to maintain the necessary appearance of complete impartiality of the High Court to which we have the honour to address ourselves,” the popular people underline in the text to which ABC had access.

This refers to the court’s order of April 27, 2022, which states the rule that “recused judges cannot be part of the body responsible for resolving the dispute” and that the only cause for exception to this general rule would be before a recusal that would not achieve the minimum essential quorum of eight members to be able to act in the exercise of their powers.

However, in this case, “only the three judges were challenged in whom it can be seen that there are clear objective indications that call into question their impartiality in the current constitutional process; thus, the Court can continue to function in an ordinary manner and adopt its agreements in accordance with Article 14 of the Organic Law of the Constitutional Court.

“A simple procedure”

The TC recalls that Campo’s abstention was already unanimously approved in the previous plenary session and that the proposal brought by Conde-Pumpido is a “simple procedure” because “it is limited to transferring the abstention already unanimously approved in the first amnesty procedure.” The objective, they say, is to speed up the procedures, avoiding having to resolve the abstentions one by one in successive plenary sessions.