Associations of judges consider the situation of the CGPJ "scandalous": renewing it is a matter of "public health"

APM, AJFV and JJpD agree on the urgency to renew and FJI bet on changing the election system first

MADRID, 21 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Members of the Professional Association of the Judiciary (APM), the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association (AJFV), Judges for Democracy (JJpD) and the Independent Judicial Forum (FJI) have shared this Friday the diagnosis that the situation of the Council General of the Judicial Power (CGPJ), without renewing since 2018, is unsustainable, even describing the situation as "scandalous", within the framework of a conference organized by Vox in Congress.

Judge Juan José Carbonero, representing APM, has stated that Justice is experiencing a "scandalous" and "dramatic" situation and has given the Supreme Court as an example, whose Contentious-Administrative Chamber has thousands of matters to resolve in matters of of patrimonial responsibility due to the pandemic.

Without leaving the Supreme Court, Carbonero recalled the retirement of the president of the Social Chamber, María Luisa Segoviano, emphasizing that the "collapse" could lead to the lack of magistrates, given the inability of the CGPJ to make discretionary appointments while it is in functions by the legal reform of the Government, prevents the rooms from being constituted to deliberate.

"We have spent four years with the CGPJ extended, it is a historic milestone, it is scandalous," lamented Carbonero, who has considered the renewal of the Council "urgent" and a subsequent reform of the election system so that the judges directly appoint their members: "It is evident that the system is inoperative" and it is a "question of public and democratic health that whoever has the possibility of resolving it in their hands should do so."

From AJFV, magistrate Luis Ortiz, who has denounced the "lack of participation" of the judges in the election of their governing body, has stressed that the reasons that led the legislator in 1985 to modify the law and transfer all the power to the parties when electing the members of the Council has expired.

He explained that the "fear of inbreeding" is an argument "totally overcome", since women have become the majority of new career entrants and in 2020 74% of those who entered had no relationship, their environment, with the legal world.

"It is absolutely essential that the institutions have a mechanism that guarantees judicial independence and unfortunately today it cannot be said that it exists," Ortiz said.

He has agreed on the need to renew the CGPJ Benjamín Fernández, from JJpD, a progressive association of judges that has attended the Vox conference in Congress on judicial independence and has also called the situation of political blockade "scandalous".

"The CGPJ today responds to a huge abnormality and must be renewed in accordance with the law," urged the magistrate.

Even so, Fernández has disagreed with the rest regarding changing the way of appointing the members of the Council, reaffirming the position of JJpD to support the current system of parliamentary election.

For his part, Fernando Portillo, from FJI, has affirmed that the CGPJ has a "highly politicized" system, which means, in his opinion, that there is no true independence of the Judiciary.

"A discredited Justice does not hold up," commented Portillo, president of the only one of the four associations that has advocated first reforming the election model and then renewing it.

According to this judge, the blockade to be renewed is the first symptom that the system "is wrong", but not before denouncing that the "political handling" of the CGPJ affects the appearance of impartiality of judges and magistrates and, in practice, also of its dome.