The judges are ready to go on strike on May 16, in the middle of the electoral campaign and at the gates of the Spanish presidency of the Council of the European Union. Far from being able to appease the judicial crisis, the Government must deal with the "perfect storm" that has caused the extreme situation in which justice finds itself. First there were the lawyers from the administration of justice, followed by the civil servants, lawyers on duty and now the judges and prosecutors who all believe that the Ministry of Justice has pushed them to go on strike that nobody wants.
The reason for the strikes is purely economic: twenty years of frozen salaries with a drop suffered in 2009 and which they have not recovered. Added to this is the general state of justice, with a lack of personnel and technical means that lengthen judicial processes for years. This is the strike of ordinary judges, those who are in the courts every day, and it has nothing to do with the crisis affecting the judicial leadership, that is, the Supreme Court, presidencies of higher courts of justice or the Council General the Judiciary.
The judges feel abandoned and believe that now is the time to pressure the Executive to accept the demands before the elections arrive, because otherwise they will overlap with the general ones and they already calculate that there will not be another window of opportunity for three years. .
The CGPJ itself has endorsed a report that supports the salary claims of judges and magistrates. The plenary of the body has defended that "it is necessary to review and update the remuneration" adapting them to the "quantitative and qualitative principles contained in Law 15/2003 on remuneration of judicial and prosecutorial careers and the organic law of the Judiciary.
On the part of the associations calling the strike, they explain that, although the existing malaise in the race is unrelated to what is happening in the judicial leadership, they understand that the positions of the main political parties that They are allowing the CGPJ to remain in office since December 2018 and they are preventing the appointment of High Court magistrates and presidents of higher courts, which is leading to more delays in sentences and worsening the image of justice.
Both from the majority Professional Association of the Magistracy (APM) and from the Francisco de Vitoria remember that it is the politicians, and not the judges, who are causing this image of politicization of justice. For this reason, these associations defend a change in the model in the election of the members of the body that regulates judges.
The situation is "unsustainable", they recognize from the convening associations. In parallel to the salary situation of judges, courts like the Supreme Court are a powder keg. The highest judicial body has said actively and passively that it is on the verge of collapse due to the lack of magistrates, since it cannot choose substitutes for the vacancies after the parties that form the coalition government carried out a reform of the law of the Judicial Power to prevent the CGPJ from continuing to make appointments while it is in office.
And this, recall sources from the High Court, affects all citizens, who see their rights diminished with endless judicial processes and now aggravated by the various strikes that are further delaying the deadlines for any judicial process.
The Supreme Court now trusts the Constitutional Court to alleviate, even partially, the situation and declare the reform unconstitutional so that appointments can be made again in the High Court given that both the PSOE and the PP have ruled out any agreement to renew the CGPJ before the general elections, despite the damage it does both to the administration of justice and to the image of judicial independence.
