The Supreme Court has ruled that any agent of a police force that works in the rest of the Spanish State can opt for a local police position in Catalonia. Catalan regulations prohibit it, but the Supreme Court considers that the law cannot put more impediments to inter-administrative mobility than to access the public service. The sentence has a particular vote that recalls that other autonomies have similar regulations and Catalonia has its own legislation on police matters.
The decision comes as a result of two appeals filed by two agents of the Foral Police of Navarre who wanted access to the Urban Police of Barcelona. The City Council denied it and now they have won the appeal.
Both agents, with the collaboration of the CSIF union, filed, in 2017, two contentious-administrative lawsuits against the City Council for violation of fundamental rights. The civil servants submitted applications to participate in the call of May 2, 2017, to cover, through inter-administrative mobility, a position in the Urban Police of Barcelona. Both were excluded from the process for not meeting the requirement of being a Local Police officer in one of the municipalities of Catalonia, a member of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Civil Guard or the National Police assigned to Catalonia, included in the Access decree, Promotion and Mobility of Local Police of Catalonia.
Once the administrative procedure had been exhausted, and the City Council did not rectify it, two appeals were filed by CSIF’s legal advisory before the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia on behalf of the victims. In the resolution of the procedure, the TSJC recognizes the right of the interested parties to continue in the selection process and proceeds to declare the partial nullity of the decree and the final list of applicants.
The magistrates of the TSJC concluded that this exclusion was illegal based on various pronouncements of the Constitutional Court. “Imposing more demanding requirements for the inter-administrative mobility of officials, than for the initial entry into the public service, is contrary to the principle of equality as long as there are no objective reasons that justify it.” And in this case, there wasn’t, says CSIF.
Both the Generalitat and the Barcelona City Council, not satisfied with this result, decided to appeal the sentences before the Supreme Court. Now, the contentious-administrative chamber of the Supreme Court has confirmed the decision issued by the Superior Court of Justice of Catalonia, thus dismissing the appeal filed by the administration.
The High Court determines that the exclusion of the regional police officers of Navarra from a call by competition to obtain a position in the Urban Police of Barcelona is illegal. The right of the interested parties to continue the selection process and the origin of declaring the partial nullity of the decree of the Generalitat of 2002 on Access, Promotion and Mobility of Local Police of Catalonia is recognized. The sentences are final and CSIF will call for their forced execution if the Barcelona City Council does not proceed with their voluntary execution.