“It makes sense that an initiative such as that suspicion of one Attempt to ideological control over the judiciary and the office of the public prosecutor“Manuel Marchena (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1959) therefore refers to the bill promoted by the Minister of Presidium, Justice and Relations with the Cortes, Félix Bolaños, who has dismissed judges and officers of justice.
The magistrate of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court (and former President of that Chamber until last December, when he ended his mandate and resigned from RE -Election) measures his words in the interview almost as much as in the book he has just published, Endanger (Espasa), his first work of an informative nature about the underlying problems of our justice.
Does not refer to an open judicial procedure and in particular to the cause of the ‘processes’. However, it is inevitable that their reflections will be confirmed today.
A bill that changes the free opposition and the fourth turn is processed, in addition to opening the door to the access of hundreds of justice and replacement judges. Broad sectors of both careers see an attempt at ideological and political control over the judiciary and the office of the public prosecutor. Do you agree?
I have the honor to be part of different courts for access to the judicial career for the fourth turn. I assure you that all those who overcome the evidence were beautiful lawyers. In my opinion, the access system works satisfactorily. I am convinced that they are not good times for historical reforms. And open the door, without more, without the suitability of those who are already exercising as a replacement judge, it can be a huge mistake. It is logical that an initiative such as this suspicion of an attempted ideological control over the judiciary and the office of the public prosecutor.
The Minister of Justice also wants to accelerate reform to give public prosecutors the directorate of criminal investigation. In the book, “How will an organ investigate whose hierarchical head is designated by the government with absolute freedom?” What do you think will lead to the oppression of the instruction judges being replaced by prosecutors?
There is a real event and that is that in Europe that is investigating is the tax ministry. The European Union, when I wanted to protect community funds, did not set up instruction court, but a special public prosecutor. The international criminal court and the various courts ad hoc Founded to pursue war crimes and genocide, research has attributed to officers of Justice. That said, tackling a reform of the Spanish criminal process now, at the moment, with the crisis of institutional credibility in which we move, it would be a historical error. This reform requires an institutional regeneration climate that I do not observe now.
There is also a reform of the status of the Fiscal Ministry that extends the mandate of the attorney general and the intervention of the Minister of Justice in appointments and disciplinary sanctions. Is it enough?
It was a mistake that the reform that has associated the termination of the attorney -general in the termination of the government, but I think that accepting, as is now intended, is not the provision of a public office. I know that I am naive and Science Fiction seems, but the best symptom that everything has changed would have changed that a state lawyer could continue to act professionally, even in the moments of political change. But the credibility of the institution is decisive for this. Only in a scenario in which everyone’s impartiality was appreciated by everyone could that continuity be logical.
About the intervention of the Ministry of Justice, the promotions in the tax career require a proposal from the attorney general and an appointment act for the government. I think the problem is not so much in the agreement and the proposal. What needs to be entered in the reform is the requirement of a scale that shows that those proposed by the attorney general are the most suitable. And it’s not always the case.
What needs to be entered in the reform is the requirement of a scale that shows that those who are proposed by the attorney are the most suitable
The expression that gives the title to the chapter on the office of the public prosecutor (“Who is the public prosecutor depends on? Well, it is already …”) is “the best sample of a government concept that reduces the role of the attorney general to that of a subordinate body,” you write. Who has delivered that sentence is the same person you offered to preside the Supreme Court and the CGPJ: Pedro Sánchez. Why didn’t you accept it? Have you also been converted into ‘subordinate organ’?
My resignation to preside the General Council of the Judiciary was an action to claim my own personal and professional dignity.
The book defends popular action, but “with boundaries that respect its constitutional meaning.” Which limits should be set to eliminate the proliferation of popular actions for false purposes (politicians, social and mediarominity …)?
For a long time I have defended the need for a reform of the popular action. Political parties pollute the judicial debate and transfer the ideological struggle to the criminal process that, as if that was not enough, includes the disqualification of the judge. I believe that popular action should remain the point in contrast to the inhibition of the public prosecutor when he leaves the impartialness of the impartiality to which he must be subjected. But every reform should count, in addition to broad consensus margins, with the report of the advisory bodies. And of course be especially careful when not violating the already current criminal processes.
You consider an “anomaly” as the distribution in the media of the data of the criminal instruction. Would that characterize that behavior to punish the media? Which other measures would take?
I would never criminalize the journalist who spreads contrasting data that allow society to know the scope of the major national debates. Constitutional case law has established the budgets in such a way that this diffusion is legitimate and is protected by the right to informative freedom. But this has nothing to do with the legal treatment of leaks when they come from those who are obliged to stay a secret or simply reserve.
I would never criminalize the journalist who spreads contrasting data that allow society to know the scope of the major national debates.
There are no references in the book to the cause of ‘processes’, which is still open. With respect for that limit, do you think that the answer provided by justice to the separatist process has served for coexistence in Catalonia or would rather have “poultice” (the pardons, the reform of the criminal law, the amnesty, the amnesty) applied to “combat”
Of course that absence does not attribute to forgetfulness. The reason is very simple. That cause is still in the criminal room. I do not seem wise to appreciate or comment on a problem that will still demand other resolutions.
Is his book ‘An Offensive to the Executive’, as has been published? More general, do you think, as maintained from some political sectors, there are judges who have been with ‘the one who can do to do’?
It seems to me that this holder can only be signed by someone who has not read the book. And I can assure you that my book is not written against someone. All I know how to do and I will continue to do my work as a judge.
“Political power has not overcome the temptation to weaken the constitutionally conceived mechanisms for democratic control of their decisions.” There is no self -criticism of the jurisdiction itself or the bodies of the judiciary itself in that statement. What happens when the TC is always resolved in transcendent cases according to the government’s wishes? What happens if the CGPJ clinkers are distributed according to the political acronym that they have suggested? ‘Don’t turn some legal functions’ when the appointment is being processed for a judicial position?
You are right. We often miss self -criticism. However, I think this is not a book that reflects complacency with the current state of affairs. Each of the chapters contains, at least, I have also intended an analysis, especially crucial for the current situations that cover up the characteristics of the rule of law. We have become used to taking them normally what should not be normal. His question includes a wonderful radiography of realities that we have lived and we continue to live, but in which I have never participated.
Do the judges who have a citizen in the status of investigated, charged or accused of finally, in an exemption for months or years should you end?
When I was talking about the delay in the justice board, I always remember the monologue of the third action of Hamlet, when I said that one of the reasons that made life was the delay of the judges. The truth is that there are procedures that cannot undergo high speed, require to collect evidence that are not easy to obtain and that require the cooperation of other states. It is of course desirable that the procedures only take the indispensable time to clarify the fact and if they extend, that the judge explains and motivates the reasons for the interruption. Everything else seems to me to be an unacceptable anomaly.
