According to Bolaños in an interview on the Ser, the PP’s proposal has no place because “judges cannot elect judges”

The Popular Party is calling for the “immediate dismissal” of the Minister of the Presidency, Relations with the Courts and Democratic Memory, Félix Bolaños, after he flatly rejected the PP’s condition for renewing the General Council of the Judiciary on Thursday.

Bolaños has scuppered the possibility of an agreement consisting of reforming the law so that the 12 members of this body are elected by the judges themselves, something that the PP have been demanding for months.

As Bolaños explained in an interview on the Cadena Ser radio station, the PP’s proposal has no place because, in a state of law and a “full democracy” such as Spain’s, “neither the judges can elect the judges, nor the politicians can elect the politicians”.

The leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, considered Bolaños’ words to be “inadmissible totalitarianism”, an “attack on democracy, on the rule of law” and also “on judicial independence, the Constitution and the European Union”.

Bolaños debería ser cesado por su ataque a la democracia y al estado de Derecho: “no se puede hacer compartimentos estanco con los poderes del Estado” y a la independencia judicial, la Constitución y la UE: “los jueces no pueden elegir a los jueces”.
Un totalitarismo inadmisible.

— Pablo Casado Blanco (@pablocasado_) September 2, 2021

After these words, in the PP have pulled out the newspaper archive to remember that, unlike Bolaños, who considers that “judges cannot choose judges, nor politicians politicians politicians”, Pedro Sánchez did say in December 2014 that “he did not agree that the parties should be the ones to decide the governing body of judges”.

Sánchez: “Yo no estoy de acuerdo en que seamos los partidos los que decidamos el órgano de gobierno de los jueces”

Bolaños: “Los jueces no pueden elegir a los jueces”

Es el Gobierno de la mentira. Bolaños debe ser cesado ya. pic.twitter.com/2CFwkKDksE

— Pablo Montesinos (@montesinospablo) September 2, 2021

In a public statement, the PP’s Deputy Secretary of Communication, Pablo Montesinos, has denounced that the Government “has taken off its mask” with Bolaños’ statements and criticised the Socialist Executive for going against “European standards, the general interest and common sense, when it comes to strengthening judicial independence”.

He also added that the PP “will not accept any pressure”: “We owe it to the Spanish people and we will not move from the defence of judicial independence, as Pablo Casado has done, extending his hand for negotiation”.