JJpD denounces in a letter to Reynders that the CGPJ "abuses" appointments through service commissions

MADRID, 1 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Association Judges and Judges for Democracy (JJpD) has sent a letter to the European Union Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, denouncing that the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) "abuses" appointments through service commissions .

This directly affects the right to the natural judge predetermined by law, recognized in articles 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the JJpD has warned in the letter, dated June 30 of 2023.

The association has thus expressed its concern about the activity of the CGPJ, which "far from maintaining a discreet and minor profile", due to the expiration of its mandate and its interim status, "is making appointments without adhering to clear rules or procedures and that, ultimately, they affect the composition" of Spanish courts such as the National Court.

JJpD has influenced the "broad discretion" used by the CGPJ, which is "difficult to control." In this sense, he recalled that this was revealed by "the European Court of Human Rights in relation to other issues in which the Spanish Organic Law of the Judiciary also grants broad discretion in the action to said governmental body".

The association has informed Reynders that these service commissions "lack sufficient publicity for the citizen", and "they are not published in the Official Gazette, neither in terms of their offer nor in terms of their resolution".

As a consequence, he has affirmed, "the result is the alteration of the internal composition of the judicial body called upon to resolve the issues, without prior knowledge of the people who may be affected."

For this reason, JJpD has asserted that an institutional body such as the CGPJ should be "exquisitely respectful" with a right that characterizes the legal system of the European Union, which in his opinion "may endanger the right to the natural judge of article 6.1 of the European Convention on Human Rights and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the Union, and to the independent and impartial judge or court".

"There is a practically total absence of regulation on the reports that have to be issued internally in this process, both to decide which commission is approved, and in relation to who should carry it out," the association has reiterated in this regard.

Likewise, it has stressed that "in many cases these internal bodies are appointed by very similar procedures, based on the discretion of appreciation and subject to a time period for their performance", so that the people who are part of them "depend on many occasions for the renewal of the decision, of the same bodies to which they report, when they are not discretionally chosen by those same members, which raises doubts about the independence of their criteria".

The system, according to the JJpD, "is likely to raise doubts about the impartiality and independence of those appointed." "These doubts, based on the appearance generated by the appointment system, can affect the operation of the system and the judicial function that they perform," she pointed out.

The judicial association recalls that it has already made "a public appeal to the CGPJ to moderate its action in this regard, but fears that it will continue to proceed in an" opaque and susceptible way to generate doubts about the independence of those appointed.

For all this, he has asked Reynders to "remind the CGPJ in Spain of the importance and significance of its action in this regard and the relevance of the right to a natural, independent and impartial judge, which its action puts at risk".