King Felipe VI will preside over the opening of the new judicial year today in the Plenary Hall of the Supreme Court. The solemn ceremony will be marked by the anomalous situation suffered by the third power of the State with the Supreme Court with an acting president, the magistrate Francisco Marin Castan; with the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) with a mandate extended during the last almost five years -currently chaired by the vocal Vincent Guilarte-; and, with the shadow of amnesty for those who stressed the State to the extreme in 2017, forcing the head of State to deliver a historic speech in which he positioned himself against those who sought to “break the unity of Spain and national sovereignty.”
With these elements, all of them unprecedented in our democracy, the High Court today hosts the solemn act of opening the courts. Only the president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Marín Castán, and the State Attorney General, will participate in the ceremony. Alvaro Garcia Ortiz. The president of the Council, Vicente Guilarte, will sit next to the Government Chamber of the High Court, staging the unusual situation faced by the Judiciary.
According to legal sources, in his speech, Judge Marín will highlight the political blockade on the governing body of the judges, which, for the first time, has remained for an entire legislature without being renewed due to the lack of agreement between the main political forces. from the country. Likewise, he will refer to the reform of the Organic law of judicial power approved by PSOE and United We Canpreventing the CGPJ from making discretionary appointments, which has generated a collapse in the Supreme Court, which currently has almost 28% of its seats unfilled.
The situation is borderline in Chambers such as the Social or Contentious-Administrative Chambers where the pendency in the processing of matters increases month by month. In total, in the judicial leadership, -also counting on the vacancies in the superior courts of justice, provincial courts and the National Court- there are more than 80 places without renewal.
However, the various sources consulted by THE WORLD of the High Court are pessimistic about the idea that, in the current political scenario, there will be a forthcoming renewal of the CGPJ. Last year, the former president of the Council and the Supreme Court, magistrate Carlos Lemes, gave a speech in which he accused the political parties of “eroding Justice” and the coalition government of causing the greatest “disruption” in the entire “history of our democracy” in the third power of the State with the aforementioned legal reform that prevents appoint discretionary posts. Lesmes urged the PSOE and the Popular Party to renew the CGPJ within weeks and threatened to resign if there was no solution to a situation that he described as “unsustainable” twelve months ago. The petitions or warnings of the magistrate were useless and, finally, he left office a month later after a new failure in the talks held between the socialists and the popular to renew the constitutional body.
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