In spite of the suffocating heat that hit Madrid this noon, several hundred people have gathered before the headquarters of the Supreme Court to support the protest convened by the conservative associations of judges and prosecutor against the reform of the judicial career prepared by the government and that in his opinion implies an “attack against the rule of law”. “We have no choice but to go to the strike,” said the convening judges.
Dressed in the black and heavy togas with which they go to their works, numerous conservative judges have concentrated in the Plaza de la Villa de Paris. Some raised posters written in English. “Save the Rule of Law”, that is, “we save the rule of law.” The crowd that has been concentrated has claimed “judicial independence” and has shown their support: “You are not alone.”
This protest is the first step of the fight of conservative associations against the government. Then they will follow three consecutive strike days from July 1. The call part of the five associations of the Judicial Rate, which accuse the Government of threatening the “basic principles of the rule of law” with the bills that are in parliamentary process with which the Executive intends to modify access to the career and the statute of the Prosecutor's Office.
The promoters – among those who are not the only two progressive associations – have chosen to maintain the strike despite the fact that the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) decided this week unanimously that the exercise of this right by the judges lacks legal “support”.
Several judges have read a manifesto in the center of the square. “To great evils, great remedies,” they have claimed to encourage their colleagues to the strike. “We will have no choice but to go to the strike, that no one doubts that the judges do not want this strike, the justices hurt,” they have nuanced. The attendees, mostly dressed in flags of Spain, have replied: “Long live the UCO”.
The protest has gathered a heterogeneous mixture of protesters. Many lawyers, career judges, but also regular protesters against the government. “The right -wing state is not left or right,” followed the readers of the manifesto, but some banners did not agree. “Spain is no longer to democracy (Spain is no longer a democracy)”, “P. Sánchez is a Dicator (Pedro Sánchez is a dictator),” some posters said for the foreign audience he was looking at. “Pedro Sánchez, son of a bitch, Pedro Sánchez, we like fruit,” others have been launched, already thinking about the local public.
The judges and prosecutors who have attended have ended with a photograph in front of the supreme they have achieved, they have said, after trying. Meanwhile, in the speakers a reggaeton song sounded composed for the moment: “Judges and prosecutors in union, it is not bought, it is not sent to shut up, merit and law, or friends or dedazo, which wakes up the nation.”
“Because we are Spanish,” replied a protester, wrapped with a legion cap, asked for his reasons to go to the demonstration. Near Him, Gabriel and Lola, they explain that if justice depends on the Prosecutor's Office, then there is no separation of powers. “The Prosecutor's Office has to be absolutely independent, and secondly, it cannot be hierarchical. The judges do not have bosses,” they defend. They are not lawyers but have knowledge of laws, they say.
In the center of the controversy is the Executive's plan to regularize a thousand substitute judges and prosecutors that cover low and carry out courts in precarious situations. The project provides for an open process and is not limited to those who have performed these functions within the judicial and fiscal careers, although it is thought of “especially” for those who have been in this situation for years. Applicants must prove five years of legal professional practice to be able to present themselves to a practical opinion to which a phase of merits will follow. Justice ensures that stabilization is bound by the European Commission.
According to associations, this process “does not ensure the rigorous accreditation of the legal knowledge necessary to exercise jurisdictional or fiscal functions.” And grants direct access to the category of judge or prosecutor, after the practices, without equating in demand to the ordinary process of the free shift, which requires a preparation greater than five years on average. The Executive defends, however, that a contest-opposition will be held according to the criteria of “equality, merit and capacity set by the Constitutional Court.”
In fact, the law has allowed access to the career for the contest of merits to professionals with more than ten years of experience, without passing an opposition. It is the so -called fourth shift that the Executive also wants to strengthen. The law provides that they must suppose 25% of the race, but at present only 9.33% of the magistrates have accessed the race in this way. What the reform does is to ensure that its calls must be “annual and simultaneous” with those of the free opposition, where the forecast is to convene 1,440 places in the next three years.
