cgpj

The Disciplinary Commission of Spain’s Judicial Power Council (CGPJ) has finally stated that the 33 judges who signed a manifesto supporting Catalonia’s right to self-determination in March did not break any norm. According to the CGPJ’s statement released on Thursday, from “a strictly legal” point of view, the 33 Catalan judges – some of them very senior – were expressing “an opinion on an issue of legal, social or political interest” and such an action “is protected by fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of expression and opinion, guaranteed by Article 20 of the Constitution”. Therefore, the CGPJ has filed the case and will not take disciplinary actions against them, after an extreme-right and Spanish nationalist organization, Manos Limpias (which has nothing to do with its Italian homonym), had filed a criminal complaint against them. 

The Disciplinary Commission of Spain’s Judicial Power Council (CGPJ) will have to decide whether it suspends Santiago Vidal, judge of Barcelona’s High Court, for having worked in his free time on the drafting of a proposal for a future Catalan constitution in the event of independence, together with other law experts. The CGPJ judge in charge of investigating other judges, Antonio Jesús Fonseca-Herrero, recommended Vidal’s temporary suspension for “infidelity to the Constitution” of Spain. On Friday, the Catalan judge defended his freedom of expression and argued that this activity did not affect his work as he was doing it during his free time. The CGPJ decided to investigate Vidal, despite not having done the same with judges participating in activities of the People’s Party political think tank, for instance.