The report of the European Commission on the rule of law released this Wednesday reproaches Spain for yet another year not making progress in the key aspect for Justice: the depoliticization of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and the State Attorney General’s Office.
Those are the first two points that the document addresses in the section that condenses the current situation of Justice and that sets out the Commission’s recommendations for our country. «It has not continued to advance in the reinforcement of the statute of the State Attorney General, in particular with regard to the disassociation in time of the latter’s mandate with that of the Government, taking into account the European standards on the independence and autonomy of the Ministry Prosecutor”, the first lines of the report indicate.
He then addresses the situation of the Council, assuming that there has been “no progress in terms of renewal”, which is four and a half years behind schedule. Nor has anything been done so that, “immediately after” changing the members, “a process to adapt the appointment of their members chosen between judges and magistrates, taking into account European standards, begins.”
These European norms establish that the members of judicial extraction -12 of the 20- should be chosen directly by the judges, without the participation of political power. Currently, all are ultimately appointed by Congress and the Senate.
Since the renewal of the CGPJ ran aground in 2018 -not before- the PP supports this direct election. This is how he collects it in his electoral program for the 23-J, which proposes “the modification of the system of election of the members of the Council so that the judges and magistrates are the ones who choose the 12 members of judicial origin”. The Commission recalls that Parliament rejected a proposal -presented by the PP- to already address this modification.