The Supreme Court (TS) has issued a ruling in which it recognizes the right to single-parent families will extend maternity leave from 16 to 26 weeks to avoid any discrimination against minor newborns. The court establishes that this is the interpretation that must be given to the permit regulated by the Public Personnel Statute.
The Court accepts the appeal of a teacher whose request to extend maternity leave from 16 to 24 weeks was rejected by the Provincial Directorate of Education of Valladolid because she belonged to a single-parent family. A contentious-administrative court ruled in favor of the mother when it understood that the application of the regulations in force to a single-parent family model This was clearly discriminatory.. For its part, the Superior Court of Justice of Castile-León annulled the decision of the lower court and confirmed the administrative decision.
The court is approaching this case because of the controversy that exists in this case and because of the disparity of criteria on this question which exists in the Chambers and in the various Superior Courts of Justice. To do this, it interprets article 49 of the consolidated text of the law on the organic status of the civil service (Trlebep) which regulates birth permits for the biological mother and the other parent.
This article grants a 16 weeks off for her (six weeks obligatory for both parents immediately after childbirth). He adds that, of all the interests that converge in the characterization and organization of these permits, the interest of the minor takes precedence over them, and this “because, in any case, what What is at stake is the equality of newborn minors, avoid the appearance of any form of discrimination based on birth and any other personal or social condition or circumstance (article 14 of the Constitution), depending on whether one was born into one type of family or another.
The sentence, presented by Judge Pilar Teso, explains that “The type of family cannot therefore determine the difference in treatmentso that a person born in a single-parent family benefits from family care, attention and protection (established by article 68 of the Civil Code) for a much shorter period, 16 weeks, than if he or she had been born in a two-parent family. , 26 weeks.”
For the Chamber, it is “udiscrimination between minors which is qualified by the indisputable harm suffered by those who are deprived early of the care that one of their parents provides with their constant presence. It goes without saying that the temporal difference in the number of weeks is not trivial when it comes to protection and care at such a young age. »
Consequently, the interpretation made of article 49 of the Trlebep is that which “is in conformity with the Constitution, in particular with articles 14 and 39, and with the rest of the legal order, in respect of equality and best interests of the minorby prohibiting any form of discrimination based on birth.”
And there is no proof, underlines the court, “of any circumstance which could reasonably justify the difference in legal effects between the two comparable legal situations, between newborn minors according to the type of family, single-parent or two-parent , for the purposes of article 49, among so many citations, the reasons are not even understandable, as we mentioned before. Some newborn minors can benefit from the attention and care of one of their parents, a civil servant, and others not, for a longer period. Everyone must benefit from the care and attention mentioned in article 68 of the Civil Code, to the same extent, without the interpretation of the Law being able to lead us to conclusions prejudicial to equality”.
The judgment recalls that the only case of single-parent family that the law has expressly regulated, which is that caused by the death of the mother, allows the sum of the two permits. “In the case of the widowed parent, the duration of the permit therefore extends well up to the limit of two-parent families, thus producing the addition or addition that the applicant now applies for the single-parent family, naturally in the remaining part of the license that, in her case, the mother used before dying”, underline the judges.
The Chamber responds to the question of cassation interest raised that “in the case of single-parent families, the authorization provided for in article 49 of the Trlebep must be interpreted in such a way as to avoid any discrimination against newborn minors and taking into account the superior interests of these same constitutionally recognized, in the sense of adding to the leave provided for in article a) (16 weeks), that provided for in article b) (10 weeks excluding the 6 first weeks was requested, and was granted by the). Court, only the addition of eight weeks”.
