Bill to let judges choose the members of their governing council

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 Congress and the Senate, they would be elected directly by serving judges and magistrates, through a free, personal, equal, direct and secret vote, with a single open list and up to six votes per voter.
2. The eight jurist members would still be chosen by the Spanish Parliament (four by Congress and four by the Senate, by a three-fifths majority), but they would have to appear first at a public hearing with a record of merits and goals, and no one could serve more than two consecutive terms.
3. The bill would end discretionary appointments of judicial posts: the Presidents of the Provincial Courts, the High Courts of Justice and the National Court would be elected by the vote of the magistrates, and seats on the Supreme Court and Court President posts would be filled through merit-based competitions with an objective scoring system and a public defense of each candidate's merits.
4. It would create a Professional Evaluation Commission within the Council to periodically assess all judges and magistrates, using data such as the quality of rulings, the percentage of overturned decisions, average resolution time and the number of cases handled.
5. It would limit the so-called revolving doors: a judge who takes an elected or freely appointed public office could not return to the judiciary until two years after leaving it, and on returning would have to step aside from cases where political parties are parties to the proceedings.
6. Government Secretaries and Coordinating Secretaries would no longer be freely appointed and would instead be chosen through merit-based competitions with public calls. The law would take effect the day after its publication in the Official State Gazette, and the Council would have six months to issue the implementing regulations.

Who it affects

• Judges and magistrates: They would directly elect the twelve judicial members of the Council, see how their promotion is calculated, and be subject to periodic performance reviews.
• Members of the General Council of the Judiciary: They would work exclusively, receive a single salary, and be limited to two consecutive terms.
• Candidates for court presidencies and Supreme Court seats: They would have to pass objective merit competitions or peer elections instead of discretionary appointments.
• Court clerks (Letrados de la Administración de Justicia): The posts of Government Secretary and Coordinating Secretary would be decided by merit competition.
• Political parties: They would lose the power to appoint the Council's judicial members, and could not count on judges returning to cases involving them for two years.

Words worth knowing

Consejo General del Poder Judicial

The body that governs judges in Spain: it appoints, promotes and oversees the judiciary.

Vocal

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

Concurso de méritos

A system for filling a post by objectively comparing the merits of all candidates.

Puertas giratorias (revolving doors)

Judges moving to public or private posts and then back to the judiciary, which the bill would limit.

Terna

A list of three candidates proposed for an appointment.

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