Sánchez, the Constitutional Court & Catalonia
The executive, legislative and judicial branches are supposed to be separate.
The Sánchez govenment has decided to break the establishment impasse over judicial power in Spain by appointing two new Constitutional Court judges who until not very long ago worked...for the Sánchez government.
Juan Carlos Campo, a career civil servant judge, did not play just any role in Sánchez's government. He was not the Minister for Minor Affairs or the tea boy at cabinet meetings. Juan Carlos Campo was...the Justice Minister, until July 12 last year. Before he left, he signed the pardons for the Catalan separatists, contrary to the Supreme Court advice on that matter.
Laura Díez Bueso, a Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Barcelona since 2020, was the General Director of Constitutional Affairs and Legal Coordination at the Prime Miniser's Office from February 2020 until April 26 of this year. She was an advisor to the Catalan regional government on the reform of their regional statute twenty years ago and today is the Deputy Chairwoman of Catalonia's Council of Statutory Guarantees, which advises the Catalan government or parliament on new legislation.
Campo took over as Justice Minister from Dolores Delgado. Delgado, after stepping down as Justice Minister, become the Director of Public Prosecutions and has now gone back to being a senior prosecutor at the Supreme Court. After Campo stepped down, and after he had signed the pardons for the Catalan separatists, Sánchez grabbed the Speaker of the Senate, Pilar Llop, and made her the new Justice Minister.
From the judicial branch to the executive branch, or from the executive branch to the judicial branch, or from presiding a legislative body to being a minister in government, with a couple of phones calls and a brief note in the official gazette. And in all three cases, the key government position related to the courts or the legislative branch was the Justice Ministry.
Modern democracies since the Enlightenment have at least attempted to maintain the separation of powers. Montesquieu is the standard reference. Madison said that: "The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny".
Pedro Sánchez appears to be working consistently against those principles with his appointment of Justice Ministers, with a notable inclination towards Catalonia. The first media reactions this morning talked more about a general progressive impact on the court but what might the PM still want to do with the courts and Catalonia? Sedition reform, which would directly affect Puigdemont and the others, is currently going through parliament. Would he try to get them the referendum they have been demanding for years?