Nobody Voted for Them

No lo cerró, entiéndeme.

He didn't shut it down, mind you.

Lo vació.

He hollowed it out.

Convirtió a los guardianes en cómplices.

He turned the guardians into accomplices.

And that's the move, isn't it.

You don't attack the institution directly, because that looks too authoritarian and draws international attention.

You hollow it out from within.

Pack it, starve its budget, rewrite its composition rules, and suddenly the last guardrail isn't guarding anything.

En Polonia fue incluso más descarado.

In Poland it was even more brazen.

El gobierno del PiS bloqueó el nombramiento de magistrados durante meses, cambió los procedimientos de votación del tribunal para que fuera prácticamente imposible dictar sentencias, y cuando el Tribunal Constitucional declaró inconstitucionales algunas de esas reformas, el gobierno respondió diciendo que no estaba obligado a publicarlas en el boletín oficial.

The PiS government blocked judicial appointments for months, changed the court's voting procedures so it became nearly impossible to issue rulings, and when the Constitutional Tribunal declared some of those reforms unconstitutional, the government responded by saying it wasn't obliged to publish the rulings in the official gazette.

Es decir, decidieron que las sentencias no existían.

In other words, they decided the sentences didn't exist.

They literally pretended the rulings didn't happen.

I covered enough governments over the years to know that when power stops pretending to follow the law, something has broken at a very deep level.

That's not a political crisis.

That's a constitutional one.

Y ahí es donde entra la Unión Europea, que en teoría debería ser un nivel adicional de protección, pero que durante años no supo cómo reaccionar porque sus mecanismos de sanción son torpes, lentos y políticamente costosos.

And that's where the European Union comes in, which in theory should be an additional layer of protection, but which for years didn't know how to respond because its sanction mechanisms are clumsy, slow, and politically costly.

El artículo 7 del Tratado de la Unión, que permite suspender derechos de voto a un Estado miembro, nunca se ha activado completamente.

Article 7 of the Treaty, which allows a member state's voting rights to be suspended, has never been fully activated.

Es el arma nuclear que nadie se atreve a usar.

It's the nuclear weapon nobody dares to use.

The deterrent that only deters if you believe someone will pull the trigger.

I wrote a piece in 2016 about exactly this gap between what the EU's treaty architecture promises and what it can actually deliver when a member state decides to play chicken.

The enforcement machinery was designed for good-faith actors.

Claro, porque los padres fundadores de la UE no imaginaron que países miembros utilizarían las instituciones europeas como escudo mientras desmantelaban el Estado de derecho en casa.

Of course, because the EU's founding fathers never imagined that member states would use European institutions as a shield while dismantling the rule of law at home.

Esa es la ironía más amarga: la misma membresía que debería garantizar la democracia puede dar cobertura a quien la destruye, siempre que lo haga con suficiente paciencia y habilidad.

That's the bitterest irony: the very membership that's supposed to guarantee democracy can provide cover for whoever destroys it, as long as they do it with enough patience and skill.

Spain has its own constitutional court, the Tribunal Constitucional, and I want to spend real time there, because the history is specific and fascinating.

This isn't a court that was born in peacetime.

Para nada.

Not at all.

El Tribunal Constitucional español nació con la Constitución de 1978, en plena Transición, y su diseño lleva las cicatrices de lo que España acababa de dejar atrás.

Spain's Constitutional Court was born with the 1978 Constitution, right in the middle of the Transition, and its design carries the scars of what Spain had just left behind.

Cuarenta años de dictadura franquista habían demostrado que las instituciones solas no bastaban si no había alguien con autoridad real para decir 'este poder tiene un límite'.

Forty years of Francoist dictatorship had demonstrated that institutions alone weren't enough if there was no one with real authority to say 'this power has a limit'.

And the Transition itself was a negotiation on a knife's edge.

The people writing that constitution knew perfectly well there were still generals and intelligence figures who hadn't fully accepted that the old regime was gone.

Había que construir algo lo suficientemente sólido para resistir y, al mismo tiempo, lo suficientemente flexible para que tanto la izquierda como los herederos del franquismo pudieran firmarlo.

It had to be something solid enough to withstand pressure and, at the same time, flexible enough that both the left and the heirs of Francoism could sign it.

El Tribunal Constitucional es parte esencial de esa arquitectura de equilibrios: doce magistrados, nombrados en partes iguales por el Congreso, el Senado, el Gobierno y el Consejo General del Poder Judicial, precisamente para que ninguna fuerza política pudiera controlarlo en solitario.

The Constitutional Court is an essential part of that architecture of balances: twelve magistrates, appointed in equal parts by the Congress, the Senate, the Government, and the General Council of the Judiciary, precisely so that no single political force could control it alone.

In theory.

Because in practice those nominations have become intensely political.

And Spain has had some deeply uncomfortable stretches where the court has been functionally paralyzed because the governing parties couldn't agree on renewals.

Ahí le has dado en el clavo.

You've hit the nail on the head there.

El mandato de los magistrados es de nueve años y hay renovaciones parciales cada tres, pero en los últimos veinte años ha habido casos en que el tribunal ha funcionado con magistrados con el mandato caducado durante años, simplemente porque el Congreso y el Senado no lograban ponerse de acuerdo.

Magistrates serve nine-year terms with partial renewals every three years, but in the past twenty years there have been cases where the court has operated with magistrates whose mandates had expired for years, simply because Congress and the Senate couldn't reach agreement.

Eso no es solo disfunción burocrática, es una forma pasiva de descapitalizarlo.

That's not just bureaucratic dysfunction, it's a passive way of draining its capital.

Descapitalizarlo.

Draining its capital, its authority.

There's something almost elegant and awful about that tactic.

You don't need to storm the institution.

You just let the clock run out and watch it lose its footing.

Y el Tribunal Constitucional español ha tenido que pronunciarse sobre asuntos que habrían partido en dos a cualquier tribunal del mundo.

And the Spanish Constitutional Court has had to rule on matters that would have torn any court in the world apart.

El artículo 155 y la intervención del gobierno en Cataluña.

Article 155 and the government's takeover of Catalonia.

El estado de alarma durante la pandemia, que el propio tribunal terminó declarando inconstitucional.

The state of alarm during the pandemic, which the court itself eventually declared unconstitutional.

El indulto a los líderes del procés.

The pardons for the leaders of the independence bid.

Cada una de esas decisiones fue una prueba de fuego sobre si el tribunal podía actuar con independencia cuando la presión política era máxima.

Each of those decisions was a trial by fire about whether the court could act independently when political pressure was at its peak.

That catalogue alone would make most courts flinch.

And I think the Spanish public's relationship with that court is complicated, right?

Because depending on which side of those decisions you're on, the same ruling reads as either constitutional protection or naked political interference.

Eso es inevitable y no necesariamente malo.

That's inevitable and not necessarily bad.

Un tribunal que no irrita a nadie probablemente no está haciendo bien su trabajo.

A court that never irritates anyone probably isn't doing its job properly.

El problema no es la controversia en sí, es la percepción de que los magistrados votan según quién los nombró y no según la ley.

The problem isn't the controversy itself, it's the perception that magistrates vote according to who appointed them rather than according to the law.

Y esa percepción, aunque no siempre sea justa, corroe la legitimidad del tribunal tanto como cualquier reforma legal que lo ataque directamente.

And that perception, even when it isn't fair, erodes the court's legitimacy just as much as any legal reform that attacks it directly.

I want to bring the US into this because the American model is simultaneously the oldest and right now one of the most visibly stressed.

The Supreme Court was never supposed to be a trophy you win in an election.

And yet here we are.

Lo que ha pasado en el Tribunal Supremo americano en los últimos años es un experimento involuntario sobre qué ocurre cuando la ciudadanía deja de creer que los jueces aplican la ley y empieza a verlos como legisladores con toga.

What has happened to the American Supreme Court in recent years is an involuntary experiment on what happens when citizens stop believing that judges apply the law and start seeing them as legislators in robes.

La legitimidad de cualquier tribunal constitucional descansa sobre una ficción compartida, que sus decisiones son jurídicas y no políticas.

The legitimacy of any constitutional court rests on a shared fiction, that its decisions are legal and not political.

Cuando esa ficción se rompe, el daño es extraordinariamente difícil de reparar.

When that fiction breaks, the damage is extraordinarily difficult to repair.

And in the US you have confirmation hearings that are essentially political theater, lifetime appointments that turn each vacancy into a generational war, and approval ratings for the Supreme Court that have dropped to historic lows.

Something structural has cracked open.

La inamovilidad de los jueces, que se diseñó para protegerlos de la presión política, se ha convertido en un argumento para no reformar un sistema que claramente tiene problemas graves.

The irremovability of judges, which was designed to protect them from political pressure, has become an argument for not reforming a system that clearly has serious problems.

Hay democracias consolidadas, Alemania, España, que tienen mandatos fijos y no renovables para sus magistrados constitucionales, precisamente para evitar que una sola generación política capture el tribunal durante décadas.

There are well-established democracies, Germany, Spain, that have fixed and non-renewable terms for their constitutional magistrates, precisely to prevent a single political generation from capturing the court for decades.

Which raises the harder question, the one I keep circling back to: if the court's authority rests ultimately on public faith, and that faith is eroding, what actually enforces the court's decisions?

You know what Andrew Jackson supposedly said about John Marshall's ruling?

'He has made his decision, now let him enforce it.'

Esa cita resume el problema con una brutalidad perfecta.

That quote sums up the problem with perfect brutality.

Un tribunal constitucional no tiene ejército, no tiene policía, no controla el presupuesto.

A constitutional court has no army, no police force, no control over the budget.

Su única arma real es la autoridad moral, el consenso de que sus decisiones deben acatarse.

Its only real weapon is moral authority, the consensus that its decisions must be obeyed.

Y ese consenso no es un hecho de la naturaleza, es una convención social.

And that consensus is not a fact of nature, it's a social convention.

Frágil como el cristal, aunque durante décadas parezca sólida como la piedra.

Fragile as glass, even though for decades it can seem solid as stone.

Frágil como el cristal.

That's the line.

And that's what makes this feel urgent rather than academic right now, because there are governments around the world that have worked out you don't need a coup.

You just need patience and a compliant parliament.

Blindar la democracia es muchísimo más difícil que atacarla, porque quien la defiende tiene que respetar las reglas y quien la ataca puede ignorarlas.

Armoring democracy is far harder than attacking it, because whoever defends it has to respect the rules and whoever attacks it can ignore them.

Esa asimetría es el verdadero talón de Aquiles de los sistemas constitucionales.

That asymmetry is the real Achilles heel of constitutional systems.

Y la honestidad intelectual obliga a reconocer que ningún tribunal, por bien diseñado que esté, puede funcionar solo: necesita una cultura cívica que lo respalde, medios que fiscalicen, y una ciudadanía que entienda por qué importa.

And intellectual honesty compels us to admit that no court, however well designed, can function alone: it needs a civic culture to back it up, a press that holds it to account, and a citizenry that understands why it matters.

You just used a word I want to come back to, because I've been hearing it throughout this conversation and I want to make sure listeners catch it.

Blindar.

You said 'blindar la democracia.' Where does that image actually come from?

Viene del alemán 'Blende', relacionado con proteger con placas de metal, lo que en inglés sería 'to armor'.

It comes from the German 'Blende', related to protecting with metal plates, what in English would be 'to armor'.

En español lo usamos en sentido figurado constantemente: blindar un acuerdo, blindar una institución, blindar una posición política.

In Spanish we use it figuratively all the time: to armor an agreement, to armor an institution, to armor a political position.

Lo curioso es que el verbo lleva implícita la vulnerabilidad de lo que proteges.

The interesting thing is that the verb implies the vulnerability of whatever you're protecting.

Nadie blinda algo que ya es invulnerable.

Nobody armors something that's already invulnerable.

So the verb itself carries an admission of fragility.

You can't say 'blindar la democracia' without implying that democracy can break.

In English we'd reach for 'safeguard' or 'protect' but neither of them has that same metallic, defensive weight.

Exacto.

Exactly.

Y fíjate que también usamos 'blindado' para describir el estado resultante: 'ese político está blindado' significa que tiene tantos apoyos que es casi imposible hacerle daño político.

And notice that we also use 'blindado' to describe the resulting state: 'that politician is blindado' means he has so much support it's almost impossible to damage him politically.

El verbo tiene las dos direcciones, el proceso de proteger y el estado de estar protegido.

The verb works in both directions, the process of protecting and the state of being protected.

Una palabra bastante honesta sobre la naturaleza provisional de las cosas que creemos permanentes.

A rather honest word about the provisional nature of the things we think of as permanent.