The PSOE, the Popular Party and the Constitutional Court are still at odds over how to appoint magistrates and members of the control body.
The crisis between the government of Pedro Sánchez and the Judiciary grow and dye this end of the year in Spain.
The Constitutional Court, which at the request of the main opposition party – the Popular Party – gave rise to the precautionary measures and suspended on Monday the parliamentary process of a reform proposed by the PSOE-Podemos coalition Executive for the renewal of judges in the same Constitutional he said no again.
A day later, he reaffirmed his position and rejected the allegations presented by the Senate, which was scheduled to discuss this reform in its plenary session this Thursday.
Because the Congress of Deputies had already debated and approved the modification in the appointment of the new Constitutional judges. But its passage through the Senate still remained for its final approval.
accusations
“An unprecedented decision in 44 years of democracy,” President Pedro Sánchez described the first blockade of the Constitutional.
“What he did with his decision was to paralyze the action of the Cortes Generales in a matter that, in additionaffects the renewal of the Constitutional Court itself in accordance with what is established in the Magna Carta”, he added in an institutional message so that the press was summoned although without the possibility of asking questions.
Said Sánchez: “This situation has its origin in the decision that the main opposition party, the Popular Party (PP), adopted when it lost the elections and decided to breach the constitutional mandate,” he stressed.
“With this we have witnessed, since then, an unprecedented situation in the history of our democracy, with the blockade of the renewal of the government of the judges, of the General Council of the Judiciary, and also of the Constitutional Court. A blockade whose sole purpose is keep a previous composition and more favorable for their orientation”, added Sánchez.
On Wednesday, during the government control session in the Senate, President Sánchez and the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, clashed.
“He has been in national politics for nine months (as president of the PP) and what has he achieved? A milestone in the democratic history of this country that is to silence the Cortes Generales ”, Sánchez reproached Núñez Feijóo.
“It is evident that all of us who disagree with you We put democracy at risk”, the president of the PP replied.
“Stop disqualifying the Constitutional Court,” he insisted.
an express way
This Thursday, in its last session of the year, the Senate gave the green light to the modifications in the Spanish Penal Code referring to the crimes of sedition and embezzlement. But should have left out the amendments on the renewal of the Constitutional Court that he himself stopped.
In this race against time to find the legal shortcut that allows carrying out what is proposed, the government will insist on its reform for the Constitutional Court through a bill.
Unlike a project, which is promoted by the Executive, the bill is an initiative of Congress or the Senate. This would be an express route that would also allow avoid the challenge of the procedure by the Constitutional Court.
“In the government, how can it be otherwise, although we do not share the decision, we abide by the resolution adopted by the current conservative majority of the Constitutional Court,” Sánchez said Tuesday.
And also according to the law, under the constitutionthe government will adopt whatever measures are necessary to put an end to the unjustifiable blockade of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Court,” he warned.
Pedro Sánchez’s intention is for the socialist parliamentary group to register the bill in Congress as soon as possible.
But this alternative must be negotiated with its partners in the Congress of Deputies. It could even enable the month of January in Parliament, a period in which there are usually no sessions.
The purpose is that the reform to appoint the judges of the Constitutional Court is approved in a month.
“Parliament is going to speak. And he is going to speak clearly, ”Pedro Sánchez told the opposition leader in the Senate on Wednesday.
“Let him speak for real,” Núñez Feijóo replied. Call an election and speak the truth.”
Meanwhile, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) called a new extraordinary plenary session for Tuesday, December 27 -because Monday the 26th is a holiday in Spain-, at half past four in the afternoon.
It will be his last attempt to name his own candidates to the Constitutional Court.
It will be necessary to see if the move will have an effect since, if the bill advances, in a month the new system of appointment of judges promoted by the government could enter into force.
Madrid. Correspondent