There Has Been Much Talk This Week About the Spanish National Council of the Judiciary on the Occassion of the Annual Judicial Ceremony. What’s All the Fuss About?
Plus an Homophobic Attack That Was Not.
The General Council for the Judiciary (CGPJ) is Spain’s legal watchdog, an independent body of judges and jurists made up of 21 members: the Council’s president, 12 judges or magistrates, and eight lawyers.
The Spanish Constitution establishes how to appoint the 20 members—12 must be designated by judges and magistrates, four by the Congress of Deputies, and four by the Senate. In the latter two cases, a three-fifths majority (60%) is required.
The 20 members choose the president of the CGPJ, a position that is currently held by Carlos Lesmes, whose role is to protect “the independence of the Judicial Power”.
The CGPJ oversees the appointment of key members of the judiciary: the judges of the Supreme Court, the presidents of the regional Supreme Courts, the president of the Spanish High Court, etc.
Over the years, there have been changes to this law. The council appointed in the wake of the dictatorship, in the mid to late 70s, was formed by 12 judges that had paid allegiance to Franco during his rule, turning the judicial body into a repository of retrograde ideas that did not chime with the newly minted democracy. Ignacio Escolar from ElDiario.es explains this very well in this article (in Spanish).
The socialist Felipe González, who became prime minister in 1982, passed an Organic Law establishing that all 12 members appointed by judges and magistrates would, under the new legislation, be appointed by political parties—ten by the Congress of Deputies and ten by the Senate. The aim was to escape the judges inherited from the dictatorship. However, the move also entailed the risk of over-politicising the judiciary. If a party has a majority in both chambers, it also has a majority in the CGPJ.
The current CGPJ, which has a five-year mandate, was appointed in 2013 while Mariano Rajoy of the PP was in power and enjoying an absolute majority. Of the 21 members making up the legal watchdog, 12 were appointed by the right-wing party, granting the conservatives an unbeatable majority. A good enough reason to keep the reform hostage to political interests, more so since the PP is besieged by a long string of graft cases. But one thing is clear—without their support, the qualified majority necessary to appoint a new CGPJ is out of reach.
Over the past two and a half years, there have been several attempts at reaching an agreement between PSOE and PP. However, both parties have been putting allegedly insurmountable obstacles in the way.
In January 2020, Carlos Lesmes warned that, as an interim council, it would not make further appointments.
As a Judge’s Association says that has set up a Change.org campaign to call for a swift reform: “It is as if a political party had refused to call elections after abandoning the government without finishing their four-year legislature.”
Attempts at Unblocking the Reform
The veto of the PP’s leader Pablo Casado led the coalition government, run by the socialist PSOE and the leftist Unidas Podemos, to draft a new law aimed at unblocking stalled appointments.
The reform would maintain a qualified majority (three-fifths) in a first-round and an absolute majority in a second-round (half plus one of all possible votes), a result that would greenlight the renewal under the current makeup of the Congress of Deputies.
However, this not only angered the opposition and the judiciary, but also the European Commission and The European Association of Judges (EAJ), which showed great concern at the erosion of the judicial independence that this move implied, making the CGPJ “vulnerable to politicization”.
In the end, the coalition government backed down.
Now Pablo Casado says the PP will only agree to negotiate the reform provided a new law is passed that guarantees new judges will be appointed by their peers instead of by parliament. For the conservative party, this measure would honour the constitution, the judges, and the EU since it will reinforce judicial independence.
The counterargument is that the Spanish Constitution establishes that “justice emanates from the people,” so grating the judges that power would undermine the democratic values Spain is built on.
🤥 Big Little Lies: A Homophobic Assault that Was Not.
News broke on Monday that a 20-year-old gay man had been assaulted on Sunday at the entrance to his apartment building by eight hooded men. It happened, he told the police, at 5 pm in Malasaña, a busy neighbourhood in the centre of Madrid’s.
According to the victim, the attackers had forced him face down to the floor, where they pulled down his trousers and, wielding a knife, carved the word ‘maricón’ (faggot) into one of his buttocks while calling him homophobic slurs. They also slashed his lower lip with a knife.
The victim filed a report at a police station near his home, and a full investigation ensued. It was the first time the police had heard of such an attack in broad daylight and carried out by eight people.
On Monday, there was a wave of reactions. All political parties condemned the attack. Even Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez tweeted about it, saying: “Hatred has no place in our society. I roundly condemn this homophobic attack. We will not allow this. We will continue to work for an open and diverse country, where no one has to be afraid for who they are. He also announced an emergency meeting for Friday of the Commission Against Hate Crimes. Several LGTBI organizations called for protests to condemn the attack.
But on Wednesday, there was a sudden turn of events. The police, unable to verify his account —all security cameras checked, all alleged witnesses of the man’s movements interviewed to no avail— confronted the victim in an “unhurried” interview, during which he gave in and acknowledged that no such attack had occurred. “It was consensual, in the house of another person with whom I had a sexual relationship,” he said. The victim had made up this incredible story to hide his infidelity to his partner.
Despite this, there were protests to condemn the increasing hate speech in Spain against the LGTBI community. In recent days there have also been homophobic attacks in Toledo, Melilla, Castellón and Vitoria. The latest figures from the Interior Ministry show that, from January to June, hate crimes have increased by 9.3% compared to the same period in 2019. But this is only part of the picture since only one in 10 people who suffer a hate crime report it to the police.
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