MADRID (Reuters) – The head of Spain’s supreme court said he would step down on Monday, creating a vacuum at the head of one of the country’s crucial institutions, saying he could no longer be associated with years of political squabbling over legal appointments.
Carlos Lesmes’ mandate as president ended in December 2018, but he remained acting president because the political parties could not agree on appointments to the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), which, in turn, picks the country’s top judges.
“Staying in the post from now on only makes me complicit in a situation I abhor and is unacceptable,” Lesmes said in a statement released on Sunday evening.
Appointing the members of CGPJ requires a three-fifths majority in parliament, which has proved impossible without the support of the opposition conservative People’s Party.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is head of a minority leftist coalition government. In Spain’s increasingly polarised political landscape, there have been few agreements between the two main parties that have spent four years accusing each other of bad faith.
Sanchez said he would meet with PP’s leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo on Monday.
(Reporting by Inti Landauro; editing by Barbara Lewis)
