Progressive sector of the judiciary to meet on Monday to discuss whether to resign en masse

The resignation of Concepcion Saiz, a member of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), belonging to the progressive sector, has reopened the debate on the possible resignation of members of the institution in the governing body of judges. Member from the same region, Álvaro Cuesta, has asked the council’s alternate president, Rafael Mojo, to include a point on the agenda of next Thursday’s plenary session to analyze a possible way out of the crisis. Judiciary blocked by PP for more than four years. Cuesta has also proposed that the council’s progressive group hold an advance meeting next Monday, with the aim of discussing the possibility and feasibility of a mass resignation.

The resignation of all the members would mean the collapse of the council. And the resignation of the Progressive Bloc, even if it happened to all its members, would lead to the same result. The conservative group now has 10 members, when the quorum is made up of 11. The Progressive Bloc, in turn, is composed of six members, plus Enrique Lucas, who has been proposed as a member by the PNV and who usually works with this group, although has sometimes been uncoordinated. So, if need be, Lucas’ vote could be the deciding factor. On the other hand, there is currently no unity of norms within the progressive group regarding the legal feasibility of a mass resignation. There are those in this field who believe that the resignation of these specialties may be illegal. Furthermore, the resignations of the members would have to be accepted by the Council’s alternate president, Rafael Mojo, who in turn belongs to the Progressive Sector.

Cuesta requested that progressive groups meet this Friday in person or online. However, the meeting will initially be held next Monday as one member has returned from a trip and the other is recovering from an intervention. From there a conclusion has to be drawn about the possibility of block resignation of the members that make up the region. In addition to Mojo and Cuesta, the group also included Pilar Sepulveda, Clara Martínez de Carrega, Roger Bach, Mar Cabrejas and Concha Sage, as well as the aforementioned Enrique Lucas. In turn, the members of the conservative group are Gerardo Martínez Tristan, Wencesla Olia, Vicente Guilarte, Nuria Díaz Abad, Juan Martínez Moya, Juan Manuel Fernández Martínez, José Antonio Ballestero, Carmen Lombardo, José María Macías and María Ángeles Carmona.

The next ordinary plenary session of the Council for the Judiciary is scheduled for Thursday next week. If the decision to resign en masse by the progressive members had already been taken in that meeting, it would have already become clear that the governing body of judges was not going to continue with its work in the present precarious position. But what is most likely to happen remains unknown after Monday’s meeting of Progressive Sector members until a plenary session can be held to debate what decision should be taken. The members of this bloc know that the resolution they make is important, but it must be agreed upon by all without exception, as only eight resignations leave the council without the quorum necessary to control the judiciary.

On the other hand, both blocks would prefer not to be placed before proper completion. So that the final move to renew the council, if the resignation formula is found, will probably have to wait for the plenary session, although there is currently no voice in favor of resignation in the conservative sector, rather the opposite. In this group, the most favorable approaches to the strategies adopted by PP to block the renewal of institutions are dominant. This was the case in the last months of last year, when conservative members managed to paralyze the renewal of the constitution, despite the fact that a law in force since last June mandated candidates to be proposed within a period of three months. , which was crossed. Until now, as of the end of last December.

Álvaro Cuesta’s proposal to analyze the mass resignation of members aims to put an end to this crisis, and to try to do so unanimously or in the expression of the above member “in a coordinated manner”. When the issue is addressed in next Thursday’s plenary session, it will be the second time that such an exit has been proposed. The possibility of a mass resignation was first examined at another plenary session in December 2020. At the time, the controversy centered on legal reform to prevent the Council from continuing to make appointments to the judiciary while it remained in office.

This proposal also came from Álvaro Cuesta, and implied that the resignations would take place upon reaching the second year of the extension of the Council’s mandate, should no progress be made for its renewal. The initiative was supported by only four members of the progressive sector.