The president of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) classified this Monday, March 23, as “extremely harmful” to partisan the choice of judges to be appointed by the Assembly of the Republic to the Constitutional Court (TC), especially when it comes to career judges.
“Career judges have no party affiliation. This connection or a partisan nomination is extremely inhibiting for judges, no one likes to be [apontado como] ‘I am the judge of Chega, or the judge of the PS, the judges are not from any party”said João Cura Mariano.
Speaking to journalists in Coimbra, on the sidelines of the protocol signing ceremony for a new financial management model for judicial districts, the judge – who said he was speaking in his capacity as president of the Supreme Court of Justice.
João Cura Mariano recalled that six of the 13 TC magistrates must be judges from other courts and argued that the way in which the appointment of judges to the Constitutional Court is handled by parliament “should be completely different”.
Although considering the hypothesis that the current method of selection and appointment by the Assembly of the Republic could change – for example, judges will now be appointed, some by the President of the Republic and others by the Superior Council of the Judiciary, an entity which he also presides over due to inherent functions – João Cura Mariano refused to comment, specifically, on what he advocates.
“But within this [atual] method, I think the parties in the Assembly of the Republic should have the responsibility to make a nomination without [esta] be by parties. That is, the parties met and found competent people that they all nominated. He wasn’t the PS judge, nor the PSD judge, nor the Chega judge, it shouldn’t be like that”, he reaffirmed.
I.e, would be a generic indication of judges elected by the Assembly of the Republic and not judges nominated by each of the partiessummarized the president of the STJ, arguing that the current situation distorts the process and causes problems in public opinion.
“I then see the nominations that are made and they are from people who are extremely good professionals, who then do not vote in the Constitutional Court according to party nominations, they are free and independent. But this public discussion and public nomination is extremely inhibiting of people who want to be judges of the Constitutional Court”, emphasized João Cura Mariano.
The election for bodies external to the Assembly of the Republic, and specifically the nomination of the names of three judges for the Constitutional Court, remains at an impasse, with disagreements between the PSD and PS having been made public in recent days, which have already led to a meeting between the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the leader of the PS, José Luís Carneiro, but which was inconclusive.
Of the three judges who have to be replaced in the TC, two were nominated by the PSD and one by the PS, and the possibility is open for Chega, now the second largest parliamentary party, to enter this body and for the socialists to be left out of this election.
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