Proposal to let judges choose the governing council members

Automatic summary, not yet reviewed

1. The bill would change how the twelve judicial members of the General Council of the Judiciary are chosen: instead of being appointed by the Congress and the Senate, they would be elected directly by serving judges and magistrates through a free, personal, equal, direct and secret vote. The explanatory statement recalls that the Constitutional Court warned back in 1986 about the risk of political parties dividing up those seats.
2. The eight jurist members would still be chosen by the Cortes Generales (four by the Congress and four by the Senate, by a three-fifths majority), but before their appointment they would have to appear before a committee of each chamber, in a public hearing, with a record of merits and goals.
3. Judicial posts now filled by discretionary appointment would be filled through merit-based competitions or elections. The presidents of the Provincial Courts, the Superior Courts of Justice and the National Court would be elected by secret vote of the magistrates of their court, and seats on the Supreme Court would be filled through merit-based competitions.
4. The bill would remove the power of regional parliaments to propose magistrates for the civil and criminal chambers of the Superior Courts of Justice: those seats would be reserved for specialist magistrates.
5. It would limit the so-called revolving doors: a judge who has been on leave to run in elections or to take a discretionary public office could not return to the judiciary until four years have passed since leaving that office, and on returning would have to step aside from cases involving political parties they had been linked to.
6. Council members would work on an exclusive basis, with no other activity allowed, and a new Professional Evaluation Commission would periodically assess the performance of all judges and magistrates to support merit-based competitions. The law would take effect the day after its publication in the official state gazette.

Who it affects

• Judges and magistrates: They would directly elect the twelve judicial council members, and elect or choose by merit competition their court presidents.
• Members of the General Council of the Judiciary: They would work on an exclusive basis, under new rules on conflicts of interest, recusal and asset declarations.
• Lawyers and jurists: They could apply for the eight jurist seats and for Supreme Court seats reserved for jurists, after a public hearing.
• Political parties and public officials: Judges returning from public office would wait four years to rejoin and could not take part in cases involving those parties.

Words worth knowing

Consejo General del Poder Judicial (General Council of the Judiciary)

The body that governs the judiciary: it appoints, promotes and regulates judges.

Vocal

Each of the twenty members that make up the General Council of the Judiciary.

Concurso de méritos (merit-based competition)

A selection system that compares candidates based on objective merit criteria.

Puertas giratorias (revolving doors)

Moving between public jobs, for example from judge to political office and back to the courts.

Tres quintos (three-fifths)

A reinforced majority: three out of five votes, required to appoint council members.

It summarizes the text as it was introduced. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries