Enrique López will join the National Court after leaving the Government of Ayuso
The still Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Interior of the Community of Madrid, Enrique López, plans to request the incorporation in the coming weeks to the position to which he was assigned in 2019 in the Appeals Chamber of the National Court, legal sources report. López will leave the government of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in the coming days, after beginning a first transition in February for her definitive abandonment of politics. It was then that he resigned from the Popular Party, to which he had joined when he took office.
López's departure has been confirmed for weeks along with that of the directors Enrique Ossorio and Enrique Ruiz Escudero. A few hours ago, it emerged that the Minister of Economy, Finance and Labor, Javier Fernández Lasquetty, will not repeat either. Ossorio, number three of the candidacy with which Ayuso obtained an absolute majority with up to 71 deputies, will resign this Tuesday as vice president and Minister of Education after being appointed president of the Madrid Assembly, regional sources have advanced.
Article 355 of the Organic Law of the Judiciary establishes that judges and magistrates in special services must request their return to active service within a maximum period of 10 days from the day after they leave office and return to their destination. within the 20 days immediately following. The sources consulted specify that, due to the proximity of July —the month from which the so-called Holiday Room operates—, it is likely that the formal reinstatement of the judge will not take place until September. It must be the CGPJ who formalizes his return to active service once these procedures have been completed..
López's relationship with Ayuso was never fully recomposed after the internal crisis of the PP that led to the departure of Pablo Casado from the presidency. His role as a bridge between the national and regional boards took its toll on him. Although he came to politics at the hands of Ayuso, in August 2019, a few months later, Casado incorporated him into his most trusted team in Genoa as the party's Secretary of Justice and Public Administration, replacing former minister Rafael Catalá.. He failed to gain the confidence of the new party executive after the landing of Feijóo.
López's role in the Casado stage went far beyond that of a political office to use. He led the conversations with the Ministry of Justice on the renewal of the CGPJ. He also participated directly in the line of training at the legal level and promoted some of Casado's opposition proposals, such as the initiative launched —without the other party taking over— to draft a pandemic law. It was also fundamental in the pact reached with the PSOE for the renewal of institutions such as the Constitutional Court and the Court of Accounts..
Round trip
Now, after more than four years in politics, López is heading back. His professional career has always bordered the limits between Justice and politics. More than 30 years of experience full of comings and goings and some controversy. After his first postings in First Instance and Investigation Courts, he made the leap to the General Council of the Judiciary, where he began as Section Head of the Continuing Training Service of the Judicial School and ended up as a member, assuming the functions of spokesman with enormous media exposure.
Upon leaving, he joined the National Court -where he will now return- and remained as a Chamber judge for more than 10 years. Already in 2013, he was appointed magistrate of the Constitutional Court, a position from which he resigned after an incident in a breathalyzer control. The Court, his permanent anchor point with the judiciary, once again served as a refuge and he remained there until his appointment to the regional Executive of Ayuso.
His return clashes with one of the demands of the Feijóo stage, which calls for a regulation of the so-called revolving doors. The PP claims limits for reinstatement after passing through politics and defends that those judges and magistrates who are appointed to positions of political or government election, with a rank higher than that of director general, may not return to active service until after two years from the cessation of the aforementioned charges.