SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 16 Sep. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, has admitted this Friday that it is “very serious” that the members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) continue without agreeing to renew the Constitutional Court (TC) but she is “sure” that there will be an agreement in the next few days.
In statements to journalists in Tenerife, he believes that the matter is going to “unblock” and understands that “it is necessary that the members understand” that when one complies, “swears and promises” the Constitution and the legal system, “that implies” comply with the obligations and with the deadlines established by law “or within a reasonable time”.
He has pointed out that the renewal of the TC “is a very important issue” and has said that if the Government decided in its turn not to appoint the two magistrates that correspond to it “it would be thought that the Government is blocking that renewal.”
Llop has commented that it is necessary for the TC “to respond to institutional normality” because it is a body that resolves appeals of unconstitutionality “on very important laws”, many of them related to advances in social rights and that have also been “appealed” by the PP, apart from the fact that it also has a “protective function” of the fundamental rights of citizens.
He also recalled that it is a body of “political nature” because it is appointed by the three powers of the State and responds to the “representativeness” of Parliament and therefore to “certain sensitivities”.
For this reason, he believes that the members – who met this Friday without an agreement – will finally “live up to their oath” and will be able to reach an agreement.
He has also indicated that “the ideal” is that the appointment of the magistrates “be done in rhythm” although the Government has the option of choosing “even if the CGPJ did not do it.”
“We are going to wait to see what happens, to see if these days we manage to unblock that situation of disagreement between the members of the CGPJ, we are going to let them work and if they do not reach an agreement we are going to see what the Government does, we are not going to advance scenarios that have not yet taken place”, he pointed out.
On the attitude of the PP with the renewal process of the CGPJ, he has urged its president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to “comply with the Constitution and say who are his candidates and aspiring to be members of the CGPJ.”
He has indicated that the judges already appointed their own four years ago, when the renewal process began, and now he has asked the popular leader that “he has to stop sending letters to Europe asking for the complicity of nothing more and nothing less than the European Commission to breach the Constitution”.
ACCUSES FEIJÓO OF CAUSED ALMOST “IRREVERSIBLE” DAMAGE TO THE JUSTICE
Along these lines, he has indicated that from the EC “they have said on several occasions that the urgent thing is to renew now, already the CGPJ” so that “the attitude and the obstructionist position of the PP”, both in the time of Pablo Casado as president and now, “it is causing institutional damage that may be irreversible” in the justice system.
Llop has remarked that the PP has used this renewal model of the CGPJ “for 35 years” and has asked himself “why he doesn’t want to use it now” and “why he now wants to change the whole model” at a time when they have resorted to many important laws before the Constitutional, some advance rights.
“I hope that it is not a question of using back doors to go back on women’s rights,” he has indicated, as in those of some groups, on human rights, the euthanasia law or abortion.
However, he has asked Feijóo to “clarify himself and clarify it” within the PP because “it seems that there are dissonant voices.”
