The judicial and prosecutorial associations have announced their intention to call an indefinite strike of judges as of May 16 as a measure to denounce the “lack of endowment” to Justice, since they consider the resources dedicated to this area “insufficient” in the General State Budgets.
“In the General State Administration, the administration of Justice is the Cinderella, the workloads that the courts and prosecutors have affect both the quality and speed of the judicial response and the health of the judiciary and the members of the prosecution, and everything relies on reinforcement plans and the dedication of professionals, which cannot be the only remedy for overload and high litigation,” they point out in a statement issued this Monday.
Specifically, the Professional Association of the Magistracy, the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association, the Independent Judicial Forum, the Association of Prosecutors and the Professional and Independent Association of Prosecutors have already announced their intention to join this strike. For their part, the Association of Judges and Judges for Democracy and the Progressive Union of Prosecutors, although they share their opinion on the situation the judicial system is going through, have announced that they will wait for a meeting scheduled for May 3 with the Ministry of Treasury to decide whether or not to join the call.
The Ministry of Justice held meetings with the judicial associations on March 31 and with the prosecutors on April 4, but both have decided to draw up a calendar of “pressure measures” given their dissatisfaction with the outcome of the meetings. And it is that in October 2022 the Ministry of Justice “disconvened without explanation” the Remuneration Table, a body provided for the review of the remuneration of judges and prosecutors, according to criticism from the associations.
The organizations that justify the strike say that it is not enough to call the table on May 3, which could be called off at any time or concluded without agreements, which they consider would be “delaying the agreement and serving as an instrument of government propaganda.” .
For the judges and prosecutors, this summons occurs in “a context of systematic and persistent abandonment of the Administration of Justice, which degrades the quality of the institutional response that, from the judicial system, citizens who go to court seeking of the effective protection of their rights”.
The associations express their firm intention to work to reach an agreement that avoids having to implement the pressure measures announced, “from the same good faith that has encouraged us up to now.”
“However, we will not allow this responsible attitude to serve once again as an alibi for the negligent inaction of the Ministries of Justice and Finance, which, within the Government, are responsible for ensuring that our country has an effective judicial system. that it is not possible to achieve if the work of judges, judges and prosecutors is not carried out in conditions -also remunerative- adequate”, they conclude.
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