The Constitutional Court faces 2026 with an intense agenda both inside and outside its plenary chamber. The magistrates have debates ahead of them such as the amnesty of Carles Puigdemont or the Supreme Court’s condemnation of former Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz but also a turbulent renewal of four of its magistrates, including its current president Cándido Conde-Pumpido. Some appointments that the Senate must vote on while the Popular Party threatens with a new blockade like the one it already carried out in the General Council of the Judiciary and that allowed conservative rule to be extended for almost five years. The difference is that, in this case and while they wait for their moment, those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo will be extending the position of a president and some progressive magistrates whom they have come to describe as “cancer.”
The plenary session of the guarantee court has 12 magistrates, but not all are appointed by the same procedure. Four are appointed by Congress, another four by the Senate, two by the Government and two by the CGPJ, and renewals are carried out in thirds and for nine-year terms. The next appointments on the horizon are the four judges appointed by the Senate last time: the progressives Cándido Conde-Pumpido and María Luisa Balaguer and the conservatives José María Macías and Ricardo Enríquez. His mandate expired in mid-December and the upper house, with an absolute majority of the PP, has barely set the wheels in motion for the renewal despite the warnings of the Constitutional Court itself.
The Court has a majority of seven progressive magistrates since the partial renewal of 2021, when the executive assumed the entry of the conservatives Enrique Arnaldo and Concepción Espejel in exchange for nine years of progressive majority. The Senate appointments, which are already late, do not jeopardize the internal arithmetic of the court: they have to be agreed upon by three-fifths of the total senators, which forces the PP to agree with the PSOE and closes the door to an imbalance and a ‘surprise’ of the conservatives. At least with the current parliamentary distribution.
Currently the PP and its usual partners of Vox and Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) do not have enough senators to agree between them on a partial renewal of the Constitutional Court. But Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s men have already made it clear that, for the moment, they have no intention of sitting down to negotiate. “This is a Government with which the PP can hardly negotiate anything at all,” said its spokesman Miguel Tellado. In Genoa they are clear about one thing: the electoral cycle that started on Sunday in Extremadura will go well for them and also for their potential Vox partners, who do not stop pointing out each PP agreement as a “crutch” for the PSOE.
The partial renewal of the Constitutional Court by the Senate also has a peculiarity: the candidates for magistrate are proposed by the assemblies of the autonomous communities. A generally peaceful process – at the time Conde-Pumpido’s candidacy was endorsed by the PP in the Madrid Assembly – that now faces a different scenario: regional parliaments such as Extremadura or Aragón come to this process in the middle of the electoral cycle and others such as Castilla y León and Andalusia also with the polls on the horizon. Elections where Vox hopes to grow exponentially and be the key to government for the PP after its good result in Extremadura. With their negotiation capacity, therefore, on the rise.
The blockade announced by the PP with all kinds of political and electoral calculations in the background joins the list of others previously executed in the last decade. At the top, the one he imposed in the CGPJ and who managed to perpetuate a conservative majority in the governing body of the judges five years after the mandate expired. With a fundamental difference: in this case what the blockade perpetuates is the progressive majority of the Constitutional and maintains the mandate as president of Cándido Conde-Pumpido, publicly designated by the PP as its number one enemy in the courts. At a time, furthermore, key for the Constitutional Court with high-voltage political issues ahead.
From amnesty to the attorney general
The plenary session of the Constitutional Court comes from intense years with decisions that have directly confronted it with the Supreme Court and that, in addition, have cost it the constant pointing out of PP and Vox with a campaign of discredit against any decision that contravenes its interests or rejects its resources. From overturning a good part of the sentences of the ERE of Andalusia to endorsing the amnesty law of the process to agreeing with Arnaldo Otegi or Alberto Rodríguez after being convicted by the Supreme Court.
And other burning issues pending deliberation for this year 2026 with the renewal of his presidency in the air.
The most immediate is the last and relevant fringe of the amnesty: whether the pardon law also applies to the crime of embezzlement attributed in conviction or investigation to the Catalan politicians involved in the process. The appeals of Oriol Junqueras and other convicted persons, as well as that of the accused Carles Puigdemont, were admitted for processing throughout 2025 and the plenary session plans to hand down the sentences in the first quarter of this year. Resolutions on which both the disqualification that weighs on Junqueras and the rest of the politicians depend, but also the accusation that today prevents Puigdemont from being able to return to Spain without risking being arrested for continuing to be searched and captured within the country.
This 2026 will also be the year in which Álvaro García Ortiz appeals his sentence of fine and disqualification for the leak of an email from Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s partner. The former attorney general is pending to file an incident for annulment – which will foreseeably be rejected by the same Supreme Court that has condemned him – as a prior step to going to the Constitutional Court, with an appeal based on the dissenting vote of two progressive judges whose arguments have already been successful on previous occasions before the court of guarantees.
Other pending appeals also anticipate a hot 2026 at the Constitutional headquarters on Domenico Scarlatti Street in Madrid. Norms such as the Trans Law or the reform known as the ‘yes means yes law’ are still pending ruling. Dolores Delgado, former attorney general, is also awaiting a decision on her appeals against the Supreme Court rulings that overturned her promotions to courtroom prosecutor.
These are some of the issues that will come to the attention of the plenary session while four of its judges, including its president, are waiting to know whether or not they will continue in the court. Also while the PP refuses to facilitate the eviction of a Conde-Pumpido whom they continue to point out as a danger to Spanish judicial integrity while waiting for a more favorable political cycle to try to reverse the progressive majority of the court.
Source: www.eldiario.es
