The three -day call by the blow of judges and prosecutors in relation to judicial reforms of the government revealed differences in criteria for the exercise of this right between the two blocks of the General Council of the Judicial power (CGPJ). Most vowels, proposed by the left, reject that judges, as holders of state power, can strike. However, the consultants chose at the suggestion of the popular party that there was no obvious ban and that there were other calls to the stops of judges for various reasons that had no legal consequences, which would now allow a similar scenario, according to various sources of the body consulted by Eldiario.es.
CGPJ plans to celebrate an extraordinary plenary session on this Thursday, to which conservative and progressive groups, from ten representatives in each, in principle with opposite positions. Negotiations were still open in the evening of Wednesday. The president of the body, Isabelle Perello, defended his internal conversations that the judges did not exist so that there was no legal coating for the exercise of the right to strike, although she also retained legitimacy, at least part of the claims expressed by the challenge, the consultants explain. Preellq called the plenar to analyze the position of CGPJ after receiving a notification of associations to increase unemployment, except for progressive ones.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Justice, directed by Felik Bolanos, directed trading to CGPJ, in which he warns him that if he finally determines the existence of the right to hit the call, he should facilitate the Ministry of Information about the people who support him to discard the proportional part of the wages. The same deal indicates that if, on the contrary, CGPJ decides not to announce the unemployment, it is necessary to take “measures” in order to subtract the salary “who stops providing the service voluntarily and for no justified reason”. Justice asks CGPJ to the answer until July 1, when the first of three days of consistent strikes is planned.
Legal suspension
The strike is moving in five associations of judicial law. Among them there is a professional magistracy association (APM), to which there are seven out of ten conservative vowels. Progressive judges and judges for democracy, to which three consultants are connected, are not engaged in blows, although it showed a certain reluctance to stabilize the deputies of judges, which focus part of the criticism of the associations.
The strike is a fundamental right collected in the Constitution. But in the case of judges and prosecutors, he is in a legal limited state, because there is no regulatory support that supports it. And this does not forbid him. For example, it is the attackers themselves who set minimum services. In the five previous calls – with the governments of the PP and PSOE – those who supported them did not lose their salary corresponding to this day, as happens with the rest of the workers, but this was reflected only for statistical purposes. And only citizens and lawyers paid the consequences of strikes when suspending judgments or other planned judicial actions.
The only time that the governing body of the government directly spoke on this issue was in 2009 with a call, sponsored by the second association in the number of branches, Francisco de Vitoria and the independent court forum of the minority. The head of this portfolio was Mariano Fernandez Burmeho, who resigned only a week later, was besieged for this conflict and criticism for his hunt with Baltasar Garzon, who was still active in the National Court.
Then CGPJ unanimously confirmed that there was no “legal coating” to exercise the right to strike judges. Therefore, he did not announce the call and did not install minimal services. Since then, not a single rule that recognizes the right to strike the judges has been approved. Also, it is not worth the fact that CGPJ canceled this criterion in four strokes conducted later.
Minimum salary and services
Given this legal vacuum, the majority of theses in the progressive block are that citizens’ right to access to justice cannot be interrupted in any case and that it is impossible to recognize the right to strike those who integrate the power of the state. The position of most members of this block is that CGPJ should not recognize this right for judges or establish minimal services that cover the main activity.
In fact, there are those who even indicate that the body should take measures against mobilization, which they consider irregular, which opens the door for possible disciplinary files. The law of judiciary establishes that unjustified and prolonged absence during a more natural day or less than four headquarters of the judicial authority in which a judge or a magistrate is destined is a small mistake. These types of sanctions can lead to a warning or fine of up to 500 euros.
The lack of competence of CGPJ for the installation of minimum services is also protected in most cases in a conservative block, where they claim that the Ministry of Justice cannot discount the salary of the judges of the blows, according to sources. Dolores Delgado, who was the Minister of Justice from 2018 to 2020, for the first time tried to discount salaries to judges and prosecutors who supported the strike on November 19, 2018, just five months after the government of Pedro Sanchez.
But one of the injured magistrates resorted to the National Court, the resolution of the State Secretary of the Justice, who agreed to divert the percentage of his wages after participating in the strike. He argued that the Ministry of Justice, which pays the wages of judges and prosecutors, was not competent to do what is technically known as a deduction of assets. And what he did by violating the law on data protection, having received information about who had a strike without the consent of the judges and without taking into account who was part of the minimum services.
The verdict of November 11, 2020 did not enter the lower part of the issue of whether the judges should collect their salary when hit. But he thought that he “did not agree with the law” of the resolution of the State Secretary of the Justice, who established a “proportional deduction” in the payment of those who supported the unemployment. And forced to return 193.03 euros to the magistrate. When applying this decision, the amounts were returned to all employees who supported the strike, according to the Ministry of Justice after the petition for the transparency of the portal made by Eldiario.es.
The resolution determined that, having studied the rules, “there is no prerequisite that gives the competence to the state secretary to coordinate discounts on the remuneration or deductions of assets to judges and magistrates that make up the judiciary.” And, on the other hand, he confirmed that the provisions attributed to CGPJ, competition for determining the accrual, as in the case of variable rewards for targets, trinkers, licenses or suspension of employment, are “numerous”.
CGPJ, however, was limited to informing the data of those who participated in the strike extracted from those who mentioned the governing bodies, but did not accept “some kind of agreement” regarding wages. A similar action is currently expected by the governing body of the government. Eldiario.es received, the representative said that “the deduction of assets where it is necessary will correspond to the Ministry of Justice”, given that CGPJ “has no competence in issues of wages”.
