Manuel Marchena has done the only thing he could do. This is the general opinion among the judges of the Supreme Court after the resignation of the president of the Criminal Chamber of the president of the General Council of Judicial Power (CGPJ) and the supreme court. Although some of the judges consulted add another statement to that shared by all: “it Is the only thing that I could do, but not all of the candidates would have done.” “He is skillful and ready and I knew that in these conditions he could not take that assignment,” says a magistrate.
Marchena had felt uncomfortable with the situation, according to sources, since last Monday was disseminated to the agreement between the PSOE and the PP to put in front of the Judiciary before they knew even the names of the 20 members of the governing body of the judges, who are the ones who are supposed to elect their president. The covenant put in check one of the maxims which It defended with more vehemence: the independence of the vast majority of Spanish judges, including yours. The president of the Criminal Chamber (Second Chamber of the Supreme), it is considered a man of confidence of the PP, a party which had him out for posts of responsibility during the Governments of José María Aznar, who proposed his appointment to the Government of Pedro Sanchez and that he had proposed for the same position in 2013. But he is stirred to this tag and always remember that since October of 2014 he became president of the Criminal Chamber have been investigated causes concerning politicians of the PP and the PSOE.
MORE INFORMATION The associations judicial applaud the decision of Marchena: “it Is a lesson of independence,” The PP dissolves the chat to which Cosidó sent his controversial message about the covenant to renew the Judiciary Cosidó supports the message from WhatsApp that boasts of a future control of the PP on the Supreme political interference ascribing to the Judiciary in a crisis unprecedented
In a written statement made public this Tuesday to communicate his resignation as president of the CGPJ, Marchena insists on this stuff: “The examination of the resolutions during these years I have rendered as a judge of the Supreme Court —in a special way, as chairman of the board of Admission of the cases against gaged— it is the best shows that I have never acted to shape the application of Bahigo law to the political option of the defendant or the accused,” he says. Marchena, fiscal, career, and presumed not to belong to any association, court or prosecutor and not like the ascription to these facilitate the identification of its members with a particular ideological line, a flag is hardly going to be able to fly if accepted Deneme bonusu the presidency agreed by socialists and popular.
all in all, the president of the Second Chamber had accepted that assignment. But in his environment he had expressed his dislike for how it had spread and I understood that it did not contribute to dispel the doubts that have been cast on the independence of the judiciary in the last few weeks, following, especially, of the judgment mortgage.
Marchena also knew that the designation had not liked to a part of the race, even to judges, or near, which positively evaluated his career, but which do not share the message that had been launched with his appointment. The pact between PP and PSOE had also not been well received in the Supreme court and some judges opposed to his candidacy were to pose some kind of internal mobilization to stop them or, at least, to represent the division around her.
But the trigger for his resignation was, according to several sources, the publication of the message of WhatsApp the spokesman of the PP in the Senate, Ignacio Cosidó, in which it boasted that his party would continue controlling “behind the Second Chamber” of the Supreme, who will judge the leaders of Catalan independentists and the one directed by Marchena. The judge did not make express reference to these messages in the press release that announced his decision, but alludes to them indirectly. “I have never conceived of the exercise of the judicial function as an instrument at the service of one or another political option to control the outcome of a criminal process”. Now, with his resignation, he will keep the control of the court of the procés.
