The PP applauds (literally) Manuel Marchena

MadridFive hours after the session of the trial against José Luis Ábalos, seated among the members of the court, ended, Manuel Marchena solemnly entered the noble hall of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation of Spain to be admitted as a member. A protocolary act in which, surrounded by the most prominent names in Spanish justice, he delivered a 45-minute speech on the incorporation of electronic data into criminal proceedings. Listening to him – and taking some photos with their mobile phones – was the spokesperson for Justice of the PP, María Jesús Moro. She arrived alone with ten minutes to spare before the event began and, while looking for her seat, received a particular welcome. Julián Sánchez Melgar – who is also judging José Luis Ábalos and who was State Attorney General under Mariano Rajoy after the death of José Manuel Maza – touched her shoulder to greet her. After a brief conversation, she went to sit down. And – like the entire room – she applauded Manuel Marchena when he finished his speech and when he received the insignia that accredits him as a member.

Julián Sánchez Melgar – who is also judging José Luis Ábalos and who was State Attorney General under Mariano Rajoy after the death of José Manuel Maza – touched her shoulder to greet her. After a brief conversation, she went to sit down. And – like the entire room – she applauded Manuel Marchena when he finished his speech and when he received the insignia that accredits him as a member.

Almost at the same time that María Jesús Moro arrived, Pablo Llarena showed complicity and shared smiles with José María Macías, one of the conservative magistrates of the Constitutional Court and close friend of the judge who continues to await Carles Puigdemont. Later, Llarena – an illustrious ally of Marchena in obstructing the amnesty law – greeted with good harmony the former minister Juan Carlos Campo, from the progressive wing of the TC. And at the presidential table sat Consuelo Madrigal, who has established herself as one of the dissenting prosecutors against the amnesty, and who is the treasurer of the Academy.

Manuel Marchena took advantage of his speech to present an adaptation of laws to digital technologies as "indispensable", but also to nostalgically recall the good grade he got in a civil law exam at the University of Deusto and to thank his wife – his "best advisor" – for her "patience" in reading all his writings. And between the lines, his umpteenth criticism of the amnesty law was understood: it came when he generically discredited "the appreciable abyss" that sometimes exists between the will of the parties and the final wording of a law. Nor did he spare reproaches for "accelerated procedures" for approving norms or for entrusting their drafting – with a cryptic allusion – to "cabinets of dubious technical qualification". Of course, he wanted to put a plaster on before the wound: "I would not want this statement to be interpreted as the radicalized expression of my personal discontent with the current state of affairs".

During the right of reply, led by academic Eduardo Torres-Dulce and turned into an ode to Marchena's figure, a succinct reference to the trial of the process could not be missing: "An oral hearing conducted in an exemplary and completely respectful manner with the maximum constitutional guarantees", said the academic, who was Mariano Rajoy's first Attorney General. It all stays at home.