It was a serious announcement that had not passed from a threat until yesterday, when a date was set to turn this warning into reality. A new fuse, lit in this case by judges and prosecutors, for the powder keg of protests of the Ministry of Justice, which has the civil servants of the basic scale on strike for a couple of weeks and with the hangover, which still lasts, of the collapse caused by the historic three-month stoppage of court clerks.
All the associations of prosecutors and judges (except the progressive ones) announced yesterday an indefinite strike from May 16. A stoppage, if the Ministry of Justice does not remedy it sooner, which will coincide with the campaign for the municipal and regional elections. And also, if there is no agreement before, with the indefinite strike of Justice officials.
If this threat by prosecutors and judges is fulfilled, this would be the third strike that has shaken the Ministry of Justice in just four months. An unprecedented fact that may once again negatively affect citizens heavily punished by the endemic delays in these offices.
The protest box at the ministry led by Pilar Llop was opened by the lawyers of the administration of justice (former court clerks) in December of last year with a strike that lasted three months. It all ended when Justice accepted a good part of the lawyers’ claims, among which was the promise of a salary increase of 450 euros a month.
This agreement, sealed to restore normality in the judicial offices, has, however, had an effect contrary to what the central government expected. Judges, prosecutors and civil servants already threatened, when they found out about this deal signed with the lawyers of the administration of justice, that they too would demand a salary increase. And they warned. If Justice didn’t pay attention to them, they would go on strike. Said and done.
The threat of this new indefinite strike in the judicial world is signed by the Professional Association of the Magistrate, the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association, the Independent Judicial Forum, the Prosecutors Association and the Professional and Independent Prosecutors Association. In a joint statement they state that they are taking this step due to “the lack of concrete proposals and a real purpose to negotiate” from the ministries of Justice and Finance to improve wages and reduce the workload.
A diagnosis in which the progressive associations, Judges and Judges for Democracy and the Progressive Union of Prosecutors agree, although they do not, for the moment, add to the strike threat. They want to wait to learn the approach of the Treasury at the meeting of the remuneration table scheduled for May 3.
The Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, assured yesterday that her willingness to negotiate “is undoubted”, although she did not hide her discomfort with this announcement by prosecutors and judges, since she understands that “it is not the time to adopt certain pressure measures”. Llop is in favor of waiting to see what is decided in this meeting to discuss the salaries of May 3, while the associations calling for this indefinite stoppage point out that, after the lack of concrete proposals in the preparatory meetings held on March 31 and April 4, “the guarantee that everything can be solved in this meeting is almost nil”. Experience has already taught them, says the association’s press release, that “these meetings can be called off at any time”.
And while yesterday this new fuse was burning in the powder keg of the Justice protests, the unions of the civil servants at the basic level sat down again – after the failure of the first meeting, on Thursday – with the Ministry officials. There was a meeting in the morning, which again ended without agreement, and the talks resumed in the mid-afternoon.
This second time they sat down to negotiate was also a failure. In the middle of the afternoon, the unions of the staff of Justice published a statement in which they reported the “no radical” of the Ministry of Justice to a salary increase, while it had been approved with the judicial secretaries.
These officials announce, as a result of “the lack of progress in the negotiation”, a tightening of the mobilisations, “replacing the three-hour partial stoppages with full strike days from May”. A call is made for “a complete shutdown of the Administration of Justice throughout Spain on May 4”.
The officials warn that the Ministries of Justice and Finance “will cause with their attitude a new delay in the Administration of Justice that will take years to resolve, without caring about the public service or the citizenry”.
