The General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) approved this Monday in an extraordinary plenary session an institutional declaration very critical of the probable amnesty for the leaders of the process. According to legal sources, the governing body of the judges has given the green light to a text, by nine votes, which maintains that the amnesty will be a measure with effects of “degradation” for the country and “if not abolition.” of the Rule of Law in Spain”. The Judiciary thus shows its “intense concern” and “desolation” over the controversial measure of grace.
The proposal that has been put forward contains some modifications with respect to the initial text proposed by eight members of the conservative sector of the body, all of them appointed at the proposal of the Popular Party. In the institutional declaration, the members have explained in more detail why they are now speaking out about the amnesty, despite the fact that the law has not yet been presented in Parliament and despite the fact that no one has obtained the report from the governing body of the judges.
The declaration emphasizes that it is not compatible with the principle of the rule of law that “political leaders are exempt from answering for their crimes before the courts, whatever the nature of their crimes, so that an aspiring President of the Government can obtain the personal and political benefit of preventing the government of other political forces or, expressed by its reverse, to be able to remain in the Government.” “This means degrading and turning our rule of law into an object of marketing at the service of the personal interest that seeks to present itself, from the rejection of political pluralism, as the interest of Spain,” they add.
The text had 9 votes in favor, five against and one blank from the acting president Vicente Guilarte, who does not agree with the amnesty but considers it advisable to wait for the processing of the bill.
Voting in favor were councilors Wenceslao Olea, Carmen Llombart, Jose Antonio Ballestero, Francisco Gerardo Martinez-Tristan, Juan Manuel Fernandez, Juan Martinez Moya, Jose Maria Macias, Nuria Diaz Abad and Maria Angels Carmona.
The members Pilar Sepúlveda, Mar Cabrejas, Roser Bach, Mar Cabrejas, Enrique Lucas and Clara Martínez de Careaga were against, who consider that it is not the right time for the CGPJ to rule on a measure that has not yet been registered in The deputies congress. The member and former deputy of the PSOE Álvaro Cuesta has been absent from the Plenary.
The final declaration maintains that “this Council does not discuss the powers of the parliamentary groups with representation in the Cortes to make whatever proposals for laws they consider pertinent; but neither can it accept the undertaking of an initiative that curtails in such an ostentatious manner the fundamental rights of citizens and the powers that the Constitution reserves to the Judiciary. And this is affirmed without prejudice to the specific content of the aforementioned proposition, because such clear constitutional breaches are produced by the mere fact of undertaking a law – which must be of an organic nature. to grant an amnesty.”
The majority of the Council emphasizes that “there is no Amnesty Law in our system, which will force the projected amnesty that is intended to be submitted to the Cortes to be a singular law.”
“Using the promulgation of a singular law to invade the powers of the Judiciary as a means of political negotiation constitutes a perversion of the constitutional regime, because nothing would prevent temporary majorities in the composition of the Courts from imposing their criteria above constitutional requirements. under the protection that a norm with that rank cannot be questioned by citizens,” the members emphasize.
The governing body of the judges warns that approving the amnesty for the promoters of the Catalan process “means generating a political class that is legally irresponsible and unpunished for its crimes which, while not being justified by any constitutionally legitimate purpose, means contravening the principle of responsibility of the public powers, but even the most basic principle of equality of citizens before the law proclaimed by article 14 of the Constitution”.
On the other hand, the CGPJ warns that “the enormity of the consequences of what has been announced by the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is that it turns the independence of the courts and legal certainty, justice in short, into a chimera.”
The institutional declaration of the members ends with an eye on Europe. “This General Council of the Judiciary cannot fail to point out that what is violated by the measure announced by the President of the Government is not only the Constitution with which we Spaniards provide ourselves as a framework for coexistence, but also the commitments assumed by Spain in articles 2 and 19 of the Treaty on European Union so that the principles of the rule of law and judicial independence prevail at all times. The risk that the time will come when the European Union decides not to be the alibi of a State that does not comply with its principles should be very present, at this critical moment, in the foresight of those who truly intend to act in the interest of Spain,” they conclude.
