The later the two announcements come, the worse it will be: only the resignation of PP senator Ignacio Cosidó after a newspaper revealed a WhatsApp message he sent to a group, including some hundred-odd senators, in which he boasted about the agreement with PSOE over the renovation of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and said, and I quote: "We will control the second chamber from behind the scenes"; only that, along with an immediate end to the agreement or the withdrawal of the magistrates who are going to make up the body which governs the country's judges can save in the least the disgrace Spanish justice has sunk to.
The new CGPJ agreed between PP and PSOE is dead on arrival. With no standing at all. In recent times we've seen it all, and many things it's hard to believe. We hear that shameful "la fiscalía te lo afina" ("prosecutors will sort it out for you") in the grotesque conversation between a Spanish interior minister and the head of the Catalan Anti-fraud Office. The latter had to leave his post after the Catalan Parliament dismissed him and today he's regained his position as a judge in the north of Spain. But this new incident is much worse. Infinitely worse. It's about the judges and magistrates who will make up the CGPJ, about the second chamber of the Supreme Court which has to try the Catalan political prisoners, about the new chair of that court as a whole, about hundreds of nominations for judges which will come in the new few years... And banning pro-independence parties is an objective to be carefully kept in mind relating to the agreement reached.
Although there's a clear interest in playing down the scandal which has erupted, as if it were even something natural, it's impossible they'll manage this. Merely the insinuations made in the WhatsApp messages about judge Manuel Marchena, who is named to be the next president of the CGPJ and the Supreme Court, put into doubt many of his past decisions. It's not a trivial matter since the legal architecture which has been constructed for the referendum trial had in Marchena, according to many people with knowledge of the situation, the cause's ideologue. Now, it puts in black and white what we knew or suspected, and the worst thing is that it's much more serious than we imagined.
With what authority will the Supreme Court give sentence on the referendum? With what authority will the king appear for his Christmas message and tell us that justice is the same for everyone? With what authority will they talk about the independence of the judiciary at the ceremony celebrating the start of the next legal year? Spain is in 25th place among the members of the EU in terms of independence of the judiciary, and 72 out of 148 countries worldwide. How many places will it fall with this terrifying news? How far can this damage to Spain's institutions go?