It has been baptized as the Guilarte formula, and it is one of the options contemplated by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to renew the country's paralysed judicial governance body, the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), if no progress is made at the meeting to discuss this renewal with the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The formula takes its name from the person who proposed it, the current president of the Council, Vicente Guilarte, who, in an article in El País, has proposed stripping the CGPJ of its key power, that of appointing presiding judges of Spain's major courts and all judges of the Supreme Court. As the newspaper article explains, this is the function that is most attractive and most coveted by the main political parties.
Before deciding on this option, prime minister and Socialist (PSOE) leader Sánchez will try to negotiate with the People's Party (PP) head Feijóo, in line with his announcement this Wednesday that he will call the PP leader to set up a meeting before the end of the year. At the meeting, said the Spanish PM, he will propose three accords: the renewal of the CGPJ, the reform of Article 49 of the Constitution to remove the pejorative term disminuidos to refer to people with disabilities, and progress in the creation of the new autonomous financing model.
The PP, skeptical
Thus, the key aim of this meeting is to find a way out of the five-year paralysis of the CGPJ, but the PP are more skeptical about the possibility of reaching an agreement with the Socialists. After the celebration of the protocol event to mark Spain's Constitution Day, December 6th, Sánchez accused the PP and Vox of trying to take advantage of this issue to create a political atmosphere of "drama". The PP, according to the head of the Spanish government, is "running a marathon as if it were a 100-metre race", a strategy he considers "questionable" from a political point of view.
According to Sánchez, the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary is mandatory and he has already said that "he does not intend to accept conditions" imposed by the PP in order to carry it out. If the conservative party does not agree, he asserted, it will be necessary to see what options remain open. In any case, he hopes to be able to reach an agreement with Feijóo on this point and recover the agreement that the two parties had reached years ago.
Two days before this 45th birthday of the Constitution, the uncomfortable fifth anniversary of the end of the mandate for all members of the Spanish judicial organ was passed. The Socialists are urging the PP to comply with the constitutional requirements and sit down to negotiate a renewal of the Council. The current, long-lapsed membership of the CGPJ took office on December 4th, 2013. At that point there were 20 members - the number required by law - and from among those 20, the body, with a conservative majority, also selected a president, Carlos Lesmes, who has since resigned in protest. The judicial organ should have been renewed in December 2018, but the lack of agreement between the PSOE and PP - needed in order to reach the required parliamentary supermajority of 60% support for the new appointments - has meant that most of the same members continue in office, 10 years after their arrival.