In the end, the government of Pedro Sánchez and his ineffective minister of justice have had to back down and accept that the battle it had begun with the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) was lost and, consequently, they have had to withdraw from the Congress of Deputies the reform to reduce the level of majority required for the renewal of the body. They could not have managed it more ineptly, or clumsily, to suffer a humiliating defeat in a transcendental political and judicial contention that leaves the Spanish executive knocked off its saddle and struggling to avoid the horses in its dispute with the senior judiciary. What began at the beginning of the legislature as a struggle between the Socialists (PSOE) and Podemos on the one hand, and the Popular Party (PP) on the other, to prevail over the long-expired CGPJ has turned into a pitched battle in which the PP have intelligently remained in the background, leaving Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias to crash-land in Brussels with their proposal to reduce the parliamentary majority necessary and thus be able to renew Spain's highest judicial body.
Three judicial associations protested in Brussels arguing that it was an attack on their independence and that the political power, that is, the government, was seeking to take control of the judiciary. No doubt a winning argument in EU offices in which it was of little use to explain that just the opposite was occurring: it could not be that the CGPJ was held hostage by the Popular Party, which through the web it has woven for decades has conjured a sharing-out of postings which is absolutely in its favour. Thus, since the days of Aznar, the PP has always practiced the same policy with respect to the Council of the Judiciary: block any changes when in opposition, promote them when in government. It happens that currently, despite the fact that the body's term expired in December 4th, 2018, its appointments have continued as if everything was normal until March 30th this year, when the government gazette published the decision voted by Congress and the Senate to limit the CGPJ's functions when the appointments of its members have expired.
The victory of the judges over the government is not futile and will have consequences. First of all, it reinforces the situation of the senior judicial figures who, from important positions in the CGPJ, the Supreme Court and the National Audience have promoted this operation of, first, taking this battle to the Spanish government, then keeping up the fight for a long period and, finally, getting away with it. In addition, Pedro Sánchez has been left without a plan B for this legislature and to work for a different scenario in the future will take a long time. The current structures have come out strengthened and the Spanish government has shown that it is an executive of such plainness and with so little ability to get its way that, for example, issues such as the amendment of the Penal Code to modify the crime of rebellion or the mistreated pardons end up being impossible mountains to climb for an executive lacking in strategy and responding solely to the day-to-day.
And as the final, most troubling point, the wounds suffered by the political power in this battle. Paradoxes of the moment: right now, the left apparently has more power than ever, yet the strings of real power are pulled by the right. And what’s worse: at times, the former don’t seem to realize.