Concepción Espejel Jorquera (born 15 September 1959) is a Spanish magistrate, member of the Constitutional Court of Spain since 2021.

Biography

Espejel was born on 15 September 1959 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

. She joined the judicial career in 1983, after passing a (minor) public examination to the post of district judge. She had Vinaroz,

Valls Valls () is a city and municipality in the province of Tarragona in Catalonia, Spain. According to the 2014 census it has a population of 24,570. Valls is known for its calçots – a type of scallion or green onion – and the human towers tradi ...

and

Reus Reus () is the capital of Baix Camp, in the province of Tarragona, in Catalonia, Spain. The area has always been an important producer of wines and spirits, and gained continental importance at the time of the Phylloxera plague. Nowadays it is kno ...

as early destinations. From 1987 to 2008, she worked as magistrate in the provincial ''audiencias'' of

Tarragona Tarragona (, ; Phoenician: ''Tarqon''; la, Tarraco) is a port city located in northeast Spain on the Costa Daurada by the Mediterranean Sea. Founded before the fifth century BC, it is the capital of the Province of Tarragona, and part of Tarr ...

Segovia Segovia ( , , ) is a city in the autonomous community of Castile and León, Spain. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the Province of Segovia. Segovia is in the Inner Plateau ('' Meseta central''), near the northern slopes of t ...

and Guadalajara. In Guadalajara, she assumed the pre-trial investigation on the . She served as member of the

General Council of the Judiciary The General Council of the Judiciary ( es, Consejo General del Poder Judicial, CGPJ) is the national council of the judiciary of Spain. It is the constitutional body that governs all the Judiciary of Spain, such as courts, and judges, as it i ...

(CGPJ) during the 2008–2013 term. After her spell at the CGPJ, she returned to the judicial career and entered the

Audiencia Nacional The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...

. She was

recused Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Appli ...

(at least 6 times) of procedures related to the

Gürtel case The Gürtel case is a political corruption scandal in Spain, which implicates officers of the People's Party (PP), Spain's major conservative party, some of whom have been forced to resign or have been suspended. Gürtel is one of the largest ...

because of her proximity to the People's Party (alongside fellow magistrate Enrique López). In 2017, the CGPJ elected her nonetheless to lead the Criminal Chamber of the

, in replacement of Fernando Grande-Marlaska. As president of said chamber, she participated in the trial of the so-called Altsasu case, which was eventually taken to the Strasbourg Court in order to determine if the accused had a fair trial. In October 2021, after a tentative deal struck between the national government and the opposition, she was reported to be one of the incoming members of the

Constitutional Court A constitutional court is a high court that deals primarily with constitutional law. Its main authority is to rule on whether laws that are challenged are in fact unconstitutional, i.e. whether they conflict with constitutionally established ...

. The

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies ( es, link=no, Congreso de los Diputados, italic=unset) is the lower house of the Cortes Generales, Spain's legislative branch. The Congress meets in the Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. It has 350 members elect ...

approved her nomination on 11 November 2021 and was appointed on 17 November. She was sworn in the following day.Los cuatro nuevos magistrados del Tribunal Constitucional toman posesión de sus cargos

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Espejel, Concepcion Spanish women judges Members of the General Council of the Judiciary Lawyers from Madrid Living people 1959 births 20th-century Spanish judges 21st-century Spanish judges 20th-century women judges 21st-century women judges