After years of paralysis, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) begins to launch the appointment machine at the head of the main courts. This Tuesday, candidates for the presidency of four of the five chambers of the Supreme Court must defend their candidacy before the so-called Qualification Commission. This is the first procedure in a process which, according to members of the two blocs, will be “long” and “complex”, particularly with regard to the election of the presidencies of the most delicate chambers, the Criminal Chamber and the Contentious-Administrative Chamber.
Negotiations to fill these positions have not yet begun, but in previous informal conversations, progressive members have made it clear that they support the candidacies of Ana Ferrer, for the Criminal Chamber, and Pilar Teso, for the Criminal Chamber contentious-administrative, which. they have already unsuccessfully offered to lead the ruling body of judges. At the time, conservative councilors opposed supporting both candidates and declared that they would support the other two candidates: Andrés Martínez Arrieta and Pablo Lucas, respectively. The name of the latter was also proposed by the group of members chosen at the initiative of the PP to chair the CGPJ. Also without success.
The law establishes that a candidate must obtain 13 votes, or three-fifths of the plenary session, to become president of the Supreme Court. The current CGPJ is completely divided in two, with ten progressive members and ten conservatives, plus President Isabel Perelló. The election therefore requires the agreement of advisors from both blocs. In this scenario, the sources consulted predict that, if there is one, there will not be an agreement at least until next year.
It is also a negotiation in which the application of the parity law, which requires the balanced presence of both sexes in future appointments at the head of the courts, will be decisive. Currently, there are two opposing reports on the table on how a standard aimed at finally implementing gender balance in the masculinized leadership of the courts should be applied. The Equality Commission defends that the balanced presence of both sexes must be imposed in every seat, room or audience where places are filled; while the technical cabinet considers that it is sufficient to achieve parity in all appointments made during the mandate.
The dispute around the criminal court
Attention is particularly focused on the Criminal Chamber, a key body, since it is it which investigates and judges the accused – politicians, judges and prosecutors – and through which corruption cases ultimately pass. Since 2014, its president has been Manuel Marchena, who last week officially informed the CGPJ that he would no longer hold this position as of December 5, when his second term expires.
In the event of a vacancy, the Judicial Power law provides that the presidents of the Chambers will be replaced by the magistrate occupying the best position in the hierarchy of the Chamber or section in question. In this case, it is Judge Andrés Martínez Arrieta, of the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association (AJFV), who defines himself as independent. Martínez Arrieta happens to be the rival of Judge Ana Ferrer, the favorite of the progressives, in the fight for the presidency of the Criminal Chamber.
Indeed, members of the sector of deputies elected on the proposal of the PSOE and Sumar believe that Marchena’s decision not to stay in power means that members of the conservative bloc will be “less encouraged” to reach an agreement on his replacement, because This position will already be occupied de facto by the candidate of their preference, namely Martínez Arrieta, whom they support almost more than Ferrer, to whom they attribute their proximity to the president of the Constitutional Court, Cándido. Condé-Pumpido, this because of a great conviction. Among the candidates for head of the Criminal Chamber, there is no candidate from the conservative Professional Association of the Judiciary (APM), to which the majority of conservative members belong.
Ferrer became the first woman to join the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court. A progressive in profile, he was part of the tribunal that convicted the leaders of the process, although his opinion differed from that of his colleagues when assessing the scope of the amnesty. She was the only judge in the Chamber to have chosen, in a dissenting vote, to also apply the rule to the offense of embezzlement which affects Carles Puigdemont. Martínez Arrieta, for his part, is a judge with extensive experience and currently occupies the first place on the judicial career ladder. He will reach retirement age in 2027 and, if elected, he will not be able to complete his five-year term.
The fight for the Litigation Chamber
The other Chamber on which emphasis is placed is the Contentious-Administrative Chamber, also considered essential because it is it which examines appeals against Government decisions. There, the candidates are two names that already appeared during the fight for the presidency of the CGPJ: Pilar Teso, favorite of the progressives and whom the conservatives consider to be an “emissary” of the Minister of Justice, Félix Bolaños; and Pablo Lucas, whom the deputies elected on the proposal of the PP try to pass off as a progressive and consensual profile, something with which they do not agree in the other bloc.
Teso has been a magistrate of the Contentious Chamber since 2008. She is one of the most respected names in the chamber and is considered to have a progressive profile even if she came to publicly defend her independence when the media asserted her links with the policy. the parties have left. His signature appears on the decision that approved Franco’s exhumation in 2019. A year earlier, he had proposed, without success, an intermediate solution so that the mortgage tax would be paid by the bank, while limiting the retroactivity of the decision. He was also the author of the judgment that removed the legitimacy of the Franco Foundation from calling for the erasure of Francoist streets from the street plan of Madrid and of the one that established that Vox could not veto the media during its events.
Lucas is currently a judge responsible for judicial control of the intelligence services. He is the author of some of the most important High Court judgments of the last decade: from the paralysis and approval of the exhumation of Franco to the annulment of the appointments of Magdalena Valerio and Dolores Delgado to the Council of State and Democratic Party Attorney’s Office. Memory chamber, respectively.
The joint debate
The replacement at the head of four of the five chambers of the Supreme Court comes alongside a substantive debate that could have enormous importance regarding these appointments: how the law of equal representation which, since last August, has been imposed in this case is applied. of the CGPJ that in all appointments and promotions which imply a certain margin of discretion or appreciation of merits “the principle of the balanced presence of women and men will be guaranteed, so that people of each sex do not exceed 60 % nor are less than 40%. »
However, the text does not define the terms of application of this rule, which led to the approval of two reports which produced contradictory conclusions and which predict divergences at a time when the CGPJ has nearly a hundred positions awaiting appointment. Thus, while the opinion of the Equality Commission defends that the balanced presence of both sexes must be imposed in each category – which would imply that at least two of these five positions be occupied by women – the cabinet technical believes that it is sufficient to achieve parity in all appointments during the five years of the mandate.
