This morning, twenty new members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) took their oaths or made promises before King Felipe VI at the Zarzuela Palace. The ceremony was held in the Audience Hall and was attended by prominent figures such as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Minister of Justice Félix Bolaños, Congress President Francina Armengol, and the heads of the CGPJ and Constitutional Court, Vicente Guilarte and Cándido Conde-Pumpido.
Among the newly appointed members are Supreme Court judges like Ángel Arozamena and José Antonio Montero. The group also includes Gema Espinosa, a magistrate from the Provincial Court of Barcelona, who is married to Pablo Llarena, the instructor of the Supreme Court’s “procés.” Additionally, Esther Erice makes history as the first woman to lead the Court of Navarre.
José María Fernández Seijo, who sparked a preliminary ruling at the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) allowing Spanish judges to suspend evictions, is also part of this new line-up. Málaga’s chief judge, José María Páez, is included as well.
Other new members of the judiciary are Juan Carlos Ortega from the Provincial Court of Logroño, José Eduardo Martínez Mediavilla, president of the Provincial Court of Cuenca, and Esther Rojo, president of the Provincial Court of Valencia. They are joined by Carlos Preciado, the technical coordinator at the Supreme Court, Alejandro Abascal from the National Court’s Criminal Chamber, and Lucía Avilés, a criminal judge in Mataró.
From the cohort of distinguished jurists entering the CGPJ are José Luis Costa Pillado, president of the Consultative Council of Galicia; Argelia Queralt, a lawyer with the Constitutional Court; and Pilar Jiménez, the Attorney General of Cantabria.
The group also features retired Supreme Court judge Ricardo Bodas, Administrative Justice Lawyer Luis Martín Contreras, Inés Herreros from the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Human Rights and Democratic Memory, Bernardo Fernández, past president of the Asturian Consultative Council, and Isabel Revuelta, a court lawyer and director of Legal Advice for the Senate’s General Secretariat.
Following the swearing-in ceremony, where ten vocales took oaths and ten made promises, the King and the Prime Minister greeted each new member and participated in a brief conversation before posing for photos.
The new members of the CGPJ will hold their first Plenary Session this Thursday at 1 PM. During this session, they will put forward candidates for the presidency of the governing body of judges. These candidates will be voted on between three and seven days after the inaugural session, with the individual achieving a three-fifths majority of the Plenary members being elected.
According to Article 586.2 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary, during the constitutive session, which will be presided over by the eldest member Bernardo Fernández Pérez, the different candidacies for the presidency of the Supreme Court and the governing body of judges will be announced. Each member can only propose one candidate.
The law stipulates that to be eligible for the presidency of the Supreme Court or the CGPJ, one must be a member of the Judicial Career as a Supreme Court magistrate, or a jurist with recognized competence who has practiced for at least twenty-five years.
This important event follows an agreement reached between the PSOE and the PP on June 25 to renew the CGPJ, which had been operating in a caretaker capacity since December 2018.
Image and News Source: https://www.infobae.com/america/agencias/2024/07/25/los-20-nuevos-vocales-del-cgpj-juran-o-prometen-su-cargo-ante-el-rey-felipe-vi-en-la-zarzuela/
