Bandrés, the magistrate who defended linguistic immersion in Catalonia and proposed the "decentralization" of the CGPJ

The progressive sector of the CGPJ points to the now Supreme Court magistrate as its candidate for the Constitutional

MADRID, 3 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) -

José Manuel Bandrés, the magistrate of the Supreme Court that the progressive sector of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) points out as their candidate for the Constitutional Court, defended linguistic immersion in Catalonia when in the 1980s he passed through the Territorial Court of Barcelona and proposed in 2001 the "decentralization" of the governing body of the judges.

This Thursday, Bandrés has grabbed headlines after the progressive members of the CGPJ proposed him as their candidate to occupy one of the two seats that the Council must designate for the Constitutional Court. After a meeting held this afternoon between the progressive and conservative negotiators of the Council, it is expected that both sectors will meet again in two weeks to study the names that they will propose in consensus.

Bandrés will be examined by the members of the CGPJ 11 years after he himself presented himself -- endorsed by the Association Judges and Judges for Democracy (JJpD) -- in the elections to occupy a seat in the governing body of the judges.

On that occasion, the magistrate --who was still serving in the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia-- proposed that the General Council of the Judiciary should "promote the decentralization of the government of Justice", giving the presidents of the Superior Courts and the Government Chambers "executive powers, and of coordination and concertation of the policies required to effectively provide the constitutional public service of the Administration of Justice".

For Bandrés, the CGPJ had to help "democratize" Justice in the sense that citizens felt the protective and "pacifying" action of the judges when resolving conflicts. With his candidacy, the magistrate aspired to promote what he called the "communitarization" of Justice, so that Law would be close to the daily life of citizens and the Judicial Administration would be perceived as "close, warm, friendly and transparent".

Years later, he made public a proposal on the CGPJ in the face of the crisis --in his opinion-- of governance and trust in Justice. According to the JJpD website, he promoted a constitutional reform with "remedies" such as reducing the Council to 12 members, separating its presidency from that of the Supreme Court, integrating it "perhaps" with the Fiscal Council or prohibiting closeness to politics.

Before presenting himself to the CGPJ and also before reaching the Supreme Court, Bandrés passed through the Territorial Court of Barcelona. There he signed one of the ones that he includes among his unforgettable sentences, "the one that gave the green light to linguistic immersion", according to what he said in an interview granted in 2011 to 'La Vanguardia'.

Regarding that ruling, he assured that "until then the doctrine was that teachers were only required to know Spanish." "But I was already telling you that, above all, we are guarantors of everyone's rights and we had to preserve the right of schoolchildren to master the two languages ​​of their country," he added.

In this context, the magistrate gave his opinion about the impact that the aforementioned resolution had: "Mostly, I believe that the sentence contributed to the laudable coexistence in the diversity of Catalonia".

At the time of that interview, Bandrés had, as he himself explained, eight years in the Supreme Court and 5,000 sentences as a magistrate. "And I have 15 years left to exercise. And I'm glad, because imparting justice is balsamic for society and for this magistrate," he acknowledged.

During his time at the Barcelona Territorial Court, Bandrés also stood out for a dissenting opinion that he signed in 1986. On that occasion, he warned that the performance of the former president of the Govern Jordi Pujol at the head of Banca Catalana deserved a "criminal sanction".

The magistrate drafted a dissenting opinion to record his opposition to the decision of the Plenary not to prosecute Pujol for alleged continuing crimes of false documents and misappropriation committed during his tenure as director of Banca Catalana.

The Territorial Court of Barcelona argued that there were not enough "rational indications of criminality" to send the then president of the Generalitat of Catalonia to trial. Bandrés, however, assured that the Prosecutor's Office had exposed in its indictment "behavior worthy of criminal repression" that, although not included in the Penal Code then in force, did "seriously" threaten the "regular development of socioeconomic public order" .

The now Supreme Court magistrate gave the example of the French Companies Code, which sanctioned this type of behavior with fines and prison sentences of up to five years, and the Law on Limited Companies of the German Federal Republic, which punished them with sentences of up to three years in prison.

Thus, Bandrés indicated in his dissenting opinion that the plenary session of the Territorial Court of Barcelona --"in order to favor the principles of legality and legal certainty"-- should "have explained to the national government" the different reasons that they assisted him to consider that the facts that the Prosecutor's Office attributed to Pujol were "worthy of criminal sanction."

In addition to expressing himself in his resolutions on linguistic immersion, Bandrés spoke publicly about the right to self-determination and the constitutional order.

In 1997, he made it clear at a conference in Barcelona that "the Constitution does not recognize the right of secession of the different nationalities and regions that make up the State", because the Magna Carta "is based on the indissoluble unity of Spanish action".

In the framework of his speech at the seminar 'The process of self-determination of colonial peoples', the magistrate stressed that the Constitution "contains a reform procedure that enables the autonomous communities to express their desire to separate from the State through a complex process.

However, Bandrés emphasized that this "process itself has limits, because the right to self-determination of peoples cannot be separated from the citizen's right to enjoy democracy." That right, in his opinion, "cannot be lawfully exercised to impose a despotic government."

In this context, the judge gave the example of the then "recent experience of Yugoslavia", which in his opinion demonstrated "the serious consequences against humanity caused by the dissociation of these rights". Especially, he added, when "certain elites undeservedly and arbitrarily seize ownership of the right."

"The right to self-determination can only be lawfully exercised without resorting to violence, without resorting to force. The right to self-determination of peoples is inseparable from the right to peace, because it can never be entrenched in the demand for sacrifice of human lives," he said in his lecture.