CGPJ members open list of presidential candidates, expect “imminent” agreement

After four plenary sessions in which none of the seven proposed candidates obtained the required three-fifths majority, the members of the General Council of the Judiciary opened this Monday the initial list of seven candidates, as requested by the conservative bloc of the judiciary. body. New names will be put on the table, without specifying to the sources of the CGPJ how many others.

In the last few hours, negotiations have intensified between the members proposed by the PSOE and those proposed by the Popular Party, who have had various conversations throughout the weekend, although they have not been successful because the former have continued to insist on the profiles of the magistrates Pilar Teso or Ana Ferrer who, for the conservatives, have a clear progressive tendency and consider that this is a pretext to impose them due to their well-known progressive tendency. The latter has continued to accept only the appointment of Pablo Lucas.

The successive votes held last month between the seven candidates proposed by the two blocs had twice ended with the candidacies of judges Pilar Teso and Pablo Lucas facing ten votes each, so that the nomination appeared to be at an impasse.

The fact that the plenary session of the body, initially scheduled for 5:00 p.m., was delayed by an hour suggests that an agreement could be possible on this occasion and that it could even bear fruit tomorrow. The negotiating committee met from noon in the morning until the plenary session on Monday, to the point that it started an hour later than scheduled (5:00 p.m.). Present at this meeting were four representatives of the conservatives (Alejandro Abascal, José Antonio Montero, José María Páez and Isabel Revuelta) and four of the progressives, Ángel Arozamena, Ricardo Bodas, José María Fernández Seijo and Esther Erice.