Talk:Judiciary of Spain

1985 Judicial Reform

In 1985, there was a judicial reform in Spain in which the governing council of the judiciary power (General Council of the Judicial Power of Spain) was reformed so that all 20 members are appointed by Congress. Alfonso Guerra, a prominent PSOE leader at the time, was quoted stating "Montesquieu is dead" implying that Spain no longer had an independent judiciary power from the executive and legislative powers. Apparently this has been a matter of edit wars. This reform was widely criticized and famous in Spain at the time and must be included in the articles as it is very important. The wikipedia articles are currently wrong as they insist on stating that Spain has an independent judiciary power which is not the case since 1985. (I also would like Spain to have an independent judiciary power but it is not the case.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.137.26.98 (talk) 10:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

That the judiciary is no longer independent is purely your POV and one which doesn't appear in any of the given sources. Freerepublic is a campaigning website and therefore is not a reliable source. If there was criticism of the reform then you can add this but not in the lead per WP:LEAD provided you have suffficient reliable sources. Valenciano (talk) 12:07, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

(editconflict) By the way on the use of Free Republic as a reliable source see this thread for example where consensus was that it isn't a reliable source for our purposes. Not only that but I don't even see the claim about the 1985 reform making the judiciary no longer independent. Not only that but "no longer independent" in the context that it was worded would seem to imply that the judiciary was fully independent of executive influence up to that point which is incorrect. Valenciano (talk) 14:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

So if one power (legislative) reforms another power (judiciary) so that it is governed by people appointed by the reforming power (legislative); you still think that Spain has an independent judiciary ?

You're basing that on the faulty assumption that the judiciary was "independent" in the first place prior to the 1985 reform. But what exactly was the situation pre-1985? Let's look at the 1978 constitution: Article 122, section 3: "The General Council of the Judiciary shall consist of the Chief Justice, who shall preside, and of twenty members appointed by the King for a period of five years. Of these, twelve judges and magistrates of all judicial categories, under the terms established by the Act, four by the Congress of Deputies, and four by the Senate, elected in both cases by three-fifths of its members, lawyers and other jurists of acknowledged competence with more than fifteen years of practice in their profession."

So until 1985, 8 members were appointed by the legislature, 12 by "the King." Now how do you think that worked? Do you think the King sat down and independently chose 12 judges? If you do then you've a very poor understanding of how constitutional monarchies work. In practice what happened was that the government of the day particularly the Prime Minister and Justice Minister selected the judges and these were then "approved" by the King. Such approval as in any system with a purely ceremonial head of state was simply a rubber stamp. So arguing that the 1985 reform broke a separation of power is not only uncited POV, it's just plain wrong. Arguably the 1985 reform improved the situation since less judges were chosen purely by the government of the day and more by the legislature.

So in the sense that you mean it's no more independent than American Supreme Court judges, appointed by the President with the approval of the legislature but that isn't a result of the 1985 Act and it is incorrect to assert that it is. Valenciano (talk) 14:24, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Even if this is a 2011 discussion, I must make a necessary correction.

At first I thought Valenciano misunderstood the wording of article 122.3, confusing the King's intervention (a mere "due act") into a some sorts-of constitutional convention or custom whereby the King, in theory, had the power to appoint those 12 judges -actually members- at will, but in practice deferred to the Prime Minister.

This is wrong. You see, The Judicial Power Act (Organic Law 6/1985) is not the first law on the judiciary. In fact, there once was a 1980 Act (Organic Law 1/1980, January 10th).

We must remember Article 8 of the 1980 Act, which stated -loosely translated-: «The 12 Members of judicial origin shall be chosen amongst Judges and Magistrates of all judicial categories, in the terms laid down in the present Act».

Therefore, pre-1985 the King didn't just "have de-iure power to appoint 12 justices, but by convention chose to defer that matter to the Government", no; those 12 justices were chosen, through vote, by their judicial colleagues. In other words, the pre-1985 General Council of the Judiciary contained 12 members appointed by professional judges; and 8 by the Spanish Parliament.

Now compare that to the 1985 Act: All members are directly appointed by Parliament per Article 112 of that Act (July 02nd 1985 wording):

1. The Members of the General Council of the Judiciary shall be proposed by the Congress and the Senate.

2. Each chamber shall choose, by a majority of 3/5 of its members, four Members between lawyers and other jurists of recognised competence with more than 15 years of professional exercise, according to the respective Regulation.

3. Furthermore, each of the Chambers shall propose, in the same manner by a 3/5 majority, another six Members chosen between Judges and Magistrates of all judicial categories who are in active service. (...)

See the difference? My interpretation is that the 1978 constitution implied silently that, yes, Parliament should have a say in the election of the Members, but only of those that aren't judges. And the 1980 Act went in that direction; but five years later, with the 1985 Act, now Parliament directly appoints all of them. Nowadays, it is the same.

Now, how exactly can we expect the governing body of the judiciary to be independent enough when all of its members are elected by an asymmetrically bipartisan Parliament, with virtually no input from the actual judiciary? Of course, judicial independence still exists, at least in the delivering of justice for common citizens; but indeed the 1985 reform has been very controversial, and the debate on the election of the Members of the General Council revives from time to time. Fivenigts (talk) 02:10, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

Impending Reform

In 2011 the outgoing Socialist government announced reforms which would save costs by transferring the investigative functions of the courts to the police and prosecution service, much like the Anglo-Saxon system. The new Justice minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón proposes wide ranging reforms to "depoliticize" the judiciary following the supreme court process against Baltasar Garzón, until these are published in the Boletín Oficial del Estado probably not much can be done? Timpo (talk) 18:15, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Courts of preliminary investigation

I think that this article needs as a reference this webpage:

https://e-justice.europa.eu/topics/taking-legal-action/legal-systems-eu-and-national/national-justice-systems/es_en

There, for instance you can find a better translation of courts of inquiry: they are courts of preliminary investigation. Jfbu (talk) 18:02, 21 April 2025 (UTC)