The request of five members of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) to analyze in an extraordinary plenary session the salary increase agreed between the Government and the judges has led to a tremendous internal row in which some counselor has even threatened to force the departure of Rafael Mozo, the substitute president of a body that has been in office since December 2018. Over the weekend there was already tension between the members because, according to sources from the body, Mozo remained silent despite the continuous interpellations so that specify if he was going to convene the plenary session and on what date. But the brawl broke out on Monday, when the president announced that the extraordinary plenary session would be held on Wednesday, contrary to what the members who signed the petition had claimed. These advisers demanded that the meeting take place before Tuesday, the day set for the Government and the judges to sign their agreement. “The call is extemporaneous and unacceptable (…) If you continue hiding you will force us to make decisions that we do not want,” the vocal Enrique Lucas snapped in an internal chat, say sources from the organ.
The same members who had demanded that the plenary session be convened later requested in writing that it be called off and Mozo canceled the appointment on Wednesday and incorporated the analysis of the agreement between the Government and the judges in the ordinary plenary session this Thursday. The session is intuited angry because some members have already warned that they will reproach Mozo face to face for what they already told him in the chat in which the 17 current members of the CGPJ are.
The reconstruction of the affirmations that the members made on Monday in private shows that the always latent tension in the governing body of the judges has run amok to become a harsh exchange of reproaches. The vocal Lucas, a lawyer proposed by the PNV in 2013 to be part of the CGPJ and usually attached to the progressive sector, was one of the most critical of Mozo’s decision, although not the only one who was implacable with the substitute president. Lucas is also one of the five directors who signed the request for an extraordinary plenary session (the other four were José Antonio Ballestero, Carmen Llombart, Gerardo Martínez Tristán and José María Macías, all proposed by the PP). Mozo, a magistrate of the National Court now dedicated exclusively to the Council, only half attended to that request. He called the session because he is obliged by law to do so if five or more members request it in writing, but he did not agree to set it for Monday, as they requested, but instead indicated it on Wednesday and brought to that same day the ordinary plenary session of the body that It was to be held on Thursday.
Criticism of this decision came for two reasons: because the session had been requested to analyze the salary agreement before it was signed and because the members claimed that they had already organized their agenda for Thursday’s plenary session and those who live outside Madrid had closed travel reservations for those days. Although the waiter participated little in the chat, he also claimed to those who spoke with him that holding two plenary sessions the same week doubled the CGPJ’s spending, since most of the members do not have exclusive dedication and charge a diet of 975 euros per attend plenary sessions. In addition, he maintained that the law gave him 72 hours to convene the extraordinary plenary session since the petition was registered on Friday and that weekends are non-business days and the deadline expired on Wednesday. This was the decision that led to a dispute that, according to sources, has not been closed and threatens to heat up the plenary session this Thursday.
Lucas accused Mozo of acting with “lack of respect” and “failing” his obligation to convene the plenary session on Monday. He demanded that the extraordinary plenary session be held that day electronically and the ordinary one on Thursday and it made him ugly that he had not responded to the messages from the members over the weekend. “Rafa, show your face once and for all,” the vocal demanded of Mozo, according to organ sources. “If you continue hiding and do not listen to what I tell you, you will force us to make decisions that I would not want adopted,” he warned, a statement that members of the plenary interpreted as a threat to remove the alternate president.
The vocal Macías, a lawyer, one of the most prominent representatives of the conservative sector and also a signatory of the plenary petition on Monday, criticized Mozo for calling them to a session on Wednesday when he already knew that that day it was “useless” to analyze the agreement salary because it would already be signed. “He laughs at me and my time,” he said, after reproaching the president for being “rude” for not responding to messages over the weekend. “What a way to say goodbye,” Macías said, referring to Mozo, who has less than two months left to turn 72, the mandatory retirement age for judges.
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The member Vicente Guilarte, a lawyer, proposed by the PP for the CGPJ and who aspires to succeed Mozo because he is the oldest counselor after the alternate president, also intervened in the discussion. “This doesn’t make any sense,” he told her about the decision to set the plenary session on Wednesday, reminding her that the logical thing to do was to point it out before Tuesday. Guilarte maintained that calling the plenary session for after that day was, in practice, a breach by Mozo. And he made a simile that sources from the organ recall: “The tailor who delivers the wedding suit the day after the wedding is not in default, but rather breaches his obligation.”
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