Constitutional Court: the Popular Party gave the key to power in Spain to the socialists until 2031

@ElentirENG ES 4·20·2023 · 7:02 0

The politicization of Justice in Spain is one of the most worrying symptoms of the degradation of its democratic system.

Abortion: the Spanish Constitutional Court skips its own jurisprudence to please the socialists
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The distribution of Justice between the PSOE and the PP and the exception of Vox

The distribution of the different judicial positions is a scandalous situation that the two main Spanish parties have been leading: the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the Popular Party (PP). Both parties are increasingly similar ideologically: basically, what the PP does is assume the socialist theses 5 or 10 years late. It has happened with abortion, gender ideology, ecological radicalism, yielding to separatist nationalists...

This is what led to the founding of Vox, a conservative party that does not give in to socialist theses and that, moreover, wants to depoliticize Justice and refuses to participate in the obscene distribution of judicial posts between the big parties. Contrary to Vox's position, the PP yielded to the PSOE on December 27 and its related magistrates in the Judiciary supported the renewal of the Constitutional Court (TC), giving rise to a distribution of positions in which the left has much more representation than in the Cortes (7 magistrates related to the left, 4 related to the PP and none related to Vox).

The PP tried to cover up its cession to the PSOE with harsh attacks on Vox

In the days following that renewal, the PP tried to cover up its pact with the PSOE with strong attacks on Vox, in such a way that they provided striking headlines that diverted media attention from the pact in the TC. The Christmas holidays did the rest: many Spaniards were focused on shopping and celebrating those holidays while the PSOE and the PP once again divided up Justice.

Already after Christmas, January 11, 2023 the new leftist majority of the TC appointed a new president: Cándido Conde-Pumpido, very close to the PSOE and known for his sectarianism when he held the position of State Attorney General between 2004 and 2011, under the socialist government of José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.

Feijóo thus gets an excuse to leave the socialist laws intact

On December 29 I already explained here what that leftist majority in the TC augured: shielding all the atrocities that the leftist coalition government has approved, made up of the socialists of the PSOE and the communists of Podemos during this legislature, and give the PP an excuse to leave them intact, just as it did with Zapatero's ideological laws during the Rajoy government.

Let us remember that the thesis that the PP has been applying is that if the Constitutional Court admits that a law has a place in the constitutional framework, then that law should not be changed, as if only laws could be drafted within that framework as the socialists want. This is what Alberto Núñez Feijóo did as soon as the new TC shielded the socialist law on abortion by skipping its own jurisprudence: the president of the PP hastened to bless that law and rule out its repeal.

The new socialist TC begins to shield all the laws of the PSOE

The unusual rush of the new TC to shield the abortion law (which had been appealed 13 years ago, without the previous TC, controlled by the PP, addressing the issue) was a preview of what was to come. In record time, this leftist TC has also shielded the repeal of the crime of sedition (a scandal to please the separatist partners of the government who had been convicted of that crime, so that they would not withdraw their support for Pedro Sánchez), the euthanasia law (which serves to devalue the lives of terminally ill patients or those with incurable diseases) and the education law (which violates fundamental rights, as denounced by many schools and parent associations).

Thanks to the cession of the PP, the PSOE will control the TC until 2031

This is just the beginning. On December 28, the newspaper El País, closely related to the PSOE, stated that this TC will be in office until 2031 (unless one of its magistrates die and have to be replaced, as has already happened in some cases). Thus, the socialists not only make sure that the TC does not repeal their laws with a stronger ideological charge (a repeal that was already unlikely in the event that the PP wins this year's general elections), but it can also overthrow any law that the next government approves to repeal them. Anything that the PP wants to approve will have to be agreed with the PSOE, or otherwise the TC in the hands of the socialists will tear it down.

That explains the PP's messages about a future pact with the PSOE

So, with that pact that leaders of Feijóo's party tried to cover up with harsh attacks on Vox, the PP gave the PSOE the key to power in Spain until 2031. That explains why the PP is so reluctant to accept agreements with Vox for after the next general elections: in addition to the growing ideological differences between the two parties, the PP will not be able to govern if it is not with the approval of the PSOE for everything it does, because otherwise the socialist TC will tear down any initiative not agreed between both parties.

The PP knew that this would happen if it ceded control of the TC to the left, but it did not care. The leadership of the PP has been making it clear that it feels closer to the PSOE than to Vox: in February Cuca Gamarra, general secretary of the PP, said it, and a few days before Feijóo did not rule out a pact with the PSOE, but did not contemplate a pact with Vox. Seeing what is coming with the TC, it is worth asking if the PP was preparing its voters for a Feijóo government without an absolute majority and seeking the approval of the PSOE for everything it does.

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Photo: Efe.