The conservative block of the CGPJ proposes Tolosa and Lucas as candidates for the TC to vote before the reform

Lucas was on the first list of nine candidates released by progressive members in October

MADRID, 14 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The conservative bloc of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has proposed the Supreme Court magistrates César Tolosa and Pablo Lucas as candidates for the Constitutional Court to get the interim president, Rafael Mozo, to convene an extraordinary plenary session that allows voting and electing the two names that the governing body of the judges must designate before December 22, when the legal reform promoted by the PSOE and United We Can that would favor the current candidate of the progressive sector: José Manuel Bandrés is expected to be approved.

In a letter addressed to Mozo, to which Europa Press has had access, the members of the conservative wing have put their candidates on the table after the meeting held this Wednesday. They have also attached the CVs of the applicants and have stressed that "there is no other document to provide."

César Tolosa has been a Supreme Court magistrate since 2014. Currently, he presides over the Contentious-Administrative Chamber. He entered the Judicial Career in 1982 and had his first appointment in the Court of First Instance and Instruction of Molina de Aragón (Guadalajara). In 2004 he was elected president of the Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria, a position in which he remained until his appointment to the Supreme Court.

Pablo Lucas is a magistrate of the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court since November 2001, the date on which he entered the judicial career for the shift reserved for jurists of recognized competence with at least 15 years of practice. He is in charge of controlling the activity of the CNI and was on the first list of nine candidates released by progressive members last October.

The names of Tolosa and Lucas would be added to that of Bandrés -the candidate proposed by the progressives- for the vote in which two magistrates must be elected to be appointed by the CGPJ to the Constitutional Court. CGPJ sources consulted by Europa Press had already advanced that the best positioned to obtain the endorsement of the CGPJ as a whole are Tolosa and Lucas.

The movement of the conservative bloc to put their two names on the table takes place after yesterday Tuesday Mozo refused to convene the extraordinary plenary session they requested. The interim president of the CGPJ dismissed the initial request of the conservatives, alleging that they had not accompanied their request with the names of at least two candidates for the guarantee court. For this reason, the nine members have now revealed the name of their chosen ones.

The intention of this bloc is to vote before the reform promoted by the government partners is approved, which could be approved next week both in Congress and in the Senate due to its 'express' processing.

Specifically, the PSOE and Unidas Podemos propose going from a three-fifths majority --which now requires at least 11 votes-- to a simple one for the CGPJ to designate its two candidates for the TC and that, in the event that the body of government of the judges continues to fail in its obligation to send two applicants to the Constitutional Court, their members can be held accountable even for criminal charges.

In addition, said amendment contemplates that, instead of each of the 18 members proposing and voting for two candidates, they propose and vote for only one, which -according to the CGPJ sources consulted by Europa Press- will guarantee that the two more voted are the aspirants chosen by each block of the Council (the progressive and the conservative). This is, in the case of progressives: Bandrés.

Faced with the rush that the conservative sector has shown this last week, the progressive wing of the CGPJ --which until now urged their conservative counterparts to proceed with the two appointments to the TC-- sees it necessary not only to wait for the ordinary plenary session on December, but even postponing any vote on the duo for the Constitutional until the legal reform enters into force, so that the Council can now pronounce itself with the new system.

Thus, the roles of one block and the other seem to have been reversed as a result of the proposed reform, since at the moment the conservative members ask to speed up, while the progressives advocate waiting.