Four brief appearances before the Qualification Commission of the General Council of the Judicial Power made it possible, this Tuesday, to highlight the different approaches of the four candidates for the presidency of the two key chambers of the Supreme Court: Criminal, which requires the criminal responsibility of members of the Government and other authorized persons, and Litigation-Administrative, which controls the Administration.
Andres Martínez Arrieta And Paul Lucasnumbers 1 and 3 on the judicial career ladder, presented an impressive curriculum vitae and strengthened themselves with their extensive experience in the Supreme Court, the first in criminal matters and the second in contentious-administrative matters.
Ana Ferrer And Pilar Tesothat did not emphasize gender reasonsagreed to emphasize that male candidates will not exhaust the five-year term provided for the position: Martínez Arrieta will retire in April 2027 and Lucas, in July 2026.
Appearance of Ana Ferrer
“The passage of time will lead to the retirement of five judges of the Criminal Chamber in just over two years,” Ferrer said, adding that “in this situation, It is important to maintain a stable presidencywhich makes it possible to minimize the impact on change management of the incorporation of new members.
Ferrer, who has been criticized in recent months for supporting the government’s thesis regarding the application of amnesty to the crime of embezzlement (opening a leak in the House’s until now firm position on the “trial”) Catalan), wanted to clarify that, if she is appointed President of the Chamber, “I will take up the challenge in complete independence and impartiality with whom I have worked throughout my legal career.
The judge placed the adoption of measures aimed at accelerating the processing of pending cases at the fifth rank of her action program, to which, however, Martínez Arrieta gave priority. “The House needs to be updated“, said the magistrate, who recalled that he had already successfully accomplished a similar task when he was a member of the technical cabinet of the Supreme Court and that the Criminal Chamber had 26,000 pending cases, which it managed to reduce at 6,000.
Appearance of Andrés Martínez Arrieta
Ana Ferrer cited as the first measure of her project that aimed at detecting contradictions between the declarations of the three sections of the Chamber, a task which would be carried out by the technical cabinet under the supervision of the presidency and the magistrates.
He also spoke of the need for the distribution rules to include the personal composition of the sections that resolve ordinary cases “to annoy the risk of suspecting the creation of rooms ad hoc for the solution of specific problems.
And he argued that “we must immediately require a recording and streaming application that performs computer attribution of presentations” to contribute “to the transparency and objectivity” in the nomination of speakers.
Furthermore, to “strengthen impartiality” and reduce “presidentialism”, he defended that the Chamber which admits a special case to investigate a competent person is different from the one which judges it, and that whoever occupies the presidency should not could only be in one of the two. .
Speed up the response
Pilar Teso stressed that “the five-year period set by law is a period for give stability to the presidency” of the Chamber. The magistrate indicated that the first phase of her action program would focus on shortening response times. “It is not acceptable that citizens, businesses and administrations simply have to wait more a year and a half to know whether the appeal is admitted or not,” he declared.
Teso emphasized that during the four years he worked in the Technical Office of the Supreme Court, he developed the system of admission and non-admission of appeals, so that “I know the measures that work and those that do not don’t work.”
“Beyond the questions to be resolved regarding the parity controversy,” the CGPJ told members, “the Supreme Court must be governed by merit and capacity. I have been in the contentious-administrative jurisdiction for almost 36 years , I am the first woman specialist in contentious and administrative issues to join the Supreme Court16 years ago; I have always been in large chambers and I have experienced almost all the contentious and administrative issues,” he underlined.
Appearance of Pilar Teso
Pablo Lucas, magistrate of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber for 23 years, summarized his long career as professor of constitutional law, supervisory judge of the CNI, elected member of the Government Chamber of the Supreme Court, full academician of the Royal Academy of Morality. and political science and, since January 2023, interim president of the House which he now aspires to lead.
Lucas pointed out that exercised his jurisdiction in all sections of the House and, as Acting President, he had to face the difficulty arising from the initial existence of 11 vacancies, which now number 16.
The magistrate praised the “full collaboration of all the magistrates to maintain the activity of the Chamber in increasingly difficult conditions” and concluded by emphasizing that “I am a university professor who learned to be a judge and not to be responsible for any other than the Third Chamber.” of the Supreme Court, even if it was for accidental reasons. It was not easy for me, although the effort was worth it, and that gave me a chance. fundamental experience to face the process of recomposition that we are going to experience”.
Appearance of Pablo Lucas
Also this Tuesday, the only candidate to preside over the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court appeared before the Qualification Commission of the CGPJ, Ignacio Sanchoand the two candidates for the presidency of the Social Chamber, Ureste Design And Juan Molins.
The latter was the only one among all the comparisons to mention the need “to optimize the rationalization of file processing thanks to artificial intelligence“, particularly in the process of admitting appeals. “An IT tool can never replace the judge, but it can help him,” he declared.
Ureste stressed the need to guarantee “the quality of resolutionsto which citizens are entitled”, but also that the response be “early”. To this end, he proposes a reorganization with a single admission chamber of three magistrates and two prosecutorial sections. “With this structure, the work and it is possible to increase the number of presentations,” he said.
The update of the Civil Chamber is also the main concern of Sancho, who spoke of a “fairly critical situation”with 24,000 pending cases. He proposed strengthening the technical office to speed up the admission phase and proposed modernizing the Chamber in four years.
