From all the legislative activity promoted by this government, it appears that the only law that will ultimately be sealed in the BOE is the one entitled “measures concerning the efficiency of the public service of justice”. We do not know how this eventful legislature will end.where each parliamentary debate is a pitched battle full of admissible or unacceptable pacts, but It is striking that a law is adopted to resolve the structural problem of justice.. With lots of details and fine print, and with another objective related to the desired control over the judiciary.
And among all this set of measures, The so-called stabilization or regularization of substitute judges attracts attention and of deputy magistrates. It is said that he wants to put an end to temporality and increase the number of judicial personnel. Anger immediately came from the judicial associations who understand this procedure as a false gateway to a judicial career. Let’s be thoughtful, because there is an incontestable reality that has existed for decades in our judicial system, it is justice exercised by this type of temporary worker who we call substitutes or surrogates. Judicial personnel and their needs have been covered in an improvised manner, and without any government having promoted a realistic adaptation to the needs of the Spanish population and the number of judges. We have always lagged behind the countries of the European Union in setting an example in the ratio of number of inhabitants to number of judges.. And to make matters worse, many vacant positions were covered by this replacement system, which we always wanted to end, but the reality was different. We must remember the Ruiz-Gallardón ministry which determined with little success the end of replacements, unless it was between career judges in an ordinary way.
The professionals who carry out this work as substitutes live in a paradoxical status. They are as incompatible as professional judges, but they do not have stability in their work and their remuneration system is not the same. And in turn, and this is another fact, the The European Commission takes give touches and with notice of sanction if the problem of temporary civil servant positions is not regularized in Spain. And without setting a precedent, this time the Government is not misleading when it suggests a possible astronomical fine from the European authorities if the question of provisional justice is not clarified.
The procedure followed for this regularization will be another problem. Pure Romanones, there is perhaps the darker side of the problem. If at least a long period is necessary, exercise in force at the time of adaptation, and tests that are not exhausting and in a neutral and fair manner, integration into the judicial career will make sense. If, on the other hand, it is a confusing and useless process, which is accompanied by an attenuation of the classic system of oppositions, where the program is reduced by half in favor of an opinion, on the other hand, which should be necessary without the need to lower the themes, the idea goes in the continued direction of power encourage access to a judicial career with less effort and greater sensitivity to the other issues that politicians love so much.
And once again, all approved without consensuswithout listening to the professionals and with the joy that always comes from finding oneself, even if it is against the clock and at dawn, the ballots for the sum at the Congress of Deputies. Or buy tenths knowing what’s going to happen.