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We have been reminded by a recent publication that evidence plays a relevant role in the decisions of the contentious jurisdiction in spite of the poor attention paid to it. In the praiseworthy efforts to restore it to its rightful place, nevertheless, it is wanting that the crest of the evidentiary activity ¿ the assessment of the evidence¿ continues to receive a meagre and stripped of context treatment; it is probably attributable (although not only) to the lack of culture in non strictly legal issues but that are decisive for the solution of legal problems.

Sobre la motivación del veredicto del Jurado, la doctrina del Tribunal Supremo ha sentado como definitivas tres tesis: 1) no cabe imponer a los Jurados legos el mismo grado de razonamiento intelectual exigible de los jueces profesionales; 2) por ello, la LOTJ demanda de los jurados una «sucinta» motivación del veredicto y nada más; 3) y la misma LOTJ habilita al magistrado-presidente para subsanar las carencias en la motivación del veredicto. En este artículo se cuestionará la primera tesis (en cuanto no fundamentada debidamente) y se negarán la segunda y la tercera (por erróneas).

There was every indication that 5th turn appointments were to be the easiests in terms of motivation and therefore the most difficult to misrepresent their compulsory motivation. For two reasons: they are positions with an essentially judicial profile (no mixed with governing functions) and their awarding falls within a single criterion: professional excellence. However, the practice carried out by the General Council of the Judiciary shows that the compulsory motivation can be openly dodged. And, unfortunately, more often than not with the argumentative help provided by the same Supreme court doctrine.

Está muy propagada la tesis —merced a su difusión por altos Tribunales y por juristas punteros— de que las sentencias absolutorias (y los veredictos de inculpabilidad) no requieren de motivación, ya que lo contrario entrañaría la disparatada exigencia de probar la inocencia, echando por tierra con ello el elemento más defi nitorio de la presunción de inocencia. En este artículo, sin embargo, se pretende mostrar que semejante dilema se fundamenta en un malentendido

Good manners matter when presiding over the functioning of our institutions by avoiding ¿on one side¿ shady dealings and unequal treatments ¿on the other¿. In the opinion of the commentator, both requirements have not been duly respected nor in the real story that led in the trial before the Court nor in the ruling by this latter when dealing with the former. Objectionable as they were some behaviors (within the General Council of the Judiciary) and with a non equidistant attitude (by the Third chamber) in many of its reasonings. All of it at the time of the Agreement to renew the Permanent committee of the Council and its posterior challenge before the Contentious-Administrative chamber.

This article focuses on analyzing an individual opinion to a Supreme Court¿s ruling that annulled a discretional appointment to the General Council of the Judiciary. The arguments in that opinion are critically observed from a general-theoretical point of view and not from the standpoint of the particularities of the case (even though at the beginning a profile of it is given in order to make the terms of the issue comprehensible). The critical considerations turn on the following subjects: the necessity of a substantive motivation (not only a formal one) in discretional appointments, the faulty approach within the dichotomy between «discretional appointment» ¿ «merit competition», the contextual motivation, discretion is not mere freedom, the inaccurate importation of two procedural elements (joint assessment and immediacy), the different methodology used in the assessment depending on the «all or nothing» or «more or less» approach.

In this work we try to show how the Jury Act is distorted in a judgment of our Supreme Court with the objective of legitimizing in general a very relaxed motivation in the verdict of the Jury.

Once again we see the ambivalences that undermine the efficacy of the doctrine that, with quite a lot of swayings (that is true) has been established by the Supreme Court regarding the reasoning of discretional appointments. This time, not only a different understanding to the (administrative) decisions by the CGPJ and the (judicial) decisions by the Third Chamber are seen but also ¿what is worse¿ within the same latter chamber.

Por un lado, se defiende el carácter vinculante del precedente judicial (vertical) como instrumento para asegurar el valor de la seguridad (y otros valores jurídicos). Pero por otro lado, la Constitución establece la independencia de los jueces “sometidos únicamente al imperio de la ley”. En este trabajo, se propone una conciliación de ambas posturas, reconociendo fuerza vinculante ‘incondicionada’ a la ley y fuerza vinculante pero ‘condicionada’ al precedente.

Two decisions of the the Third Chamber and their accompanyingindividual opinions will serve as an opportunity to rethink the advisability ofabandoning the doctrine, which currently prevails in that chamber, on the controlof the motivation of discretional appointments.