The Ministry of Justice has proposed to the lawyers of the administration of Justice a salary increase of up to 450 gross euros per month in 2024 to try to end the indefinite strike that this group has maintained for more than two months. The document, to which elDiario.es has had access, establishes an “efficiency supplement” that varies depending on the powers of these officials, which will be reached gradually until July of next year and which is consolidable. The territorial assemblies are voting throughout this Monday if they accept this proposal, which would put an end to a strike that has suspended more than 350,000 trials and views.
The judicial lawyers maintain the indefinite strike: “The Ministry of Justice has deceived us”
Further
For 94% of the lawyers, the expected increase in 2024 is 430 euros per month. They are the 3,871 officials who do not have a judicial office and the 234 assigned to the Direct Support Procedural Units (UPAD). The increase will reach 440 euros next year for the 158 officials (3%) assigned to the Common Procedural Services (SCP) and will reach 450 for the 116 lawyers (3%) who work in the Government, Coordination Provincial and in common service addresses.
According to the proposal, 40% of the monthly increase —172, 176 and 180 euros, respectively— will have a retroactive effect from last January. The same amounts will be added in January 2024. And the remaining 20% —86, 88 and 90 euros— will be added to the payroll in July 2024. Justice justifies the proposed increase due to the new responsibilities that these officials will have to assume ” in the different efficiency projects”. Particularly, in the implementation of trial courts.
This proposed agreement comes after a week of intense negotiations between the parties. The strike has already caused the suspension of more than 350,000 judicial proceedings between trials, statements and other proceedings, according to data from the organizers. A situation that, without a doubt, will contribute to increasing the state of endemic saturation that courts and tribunals are already experiencing.
Two months of conflict
The work of the 4,379 lawyers of the administration of Justice is key in courts and tribunals. These senior officials –belong to the A1 group, the same as judges and prosecutors– direct the judicial office, promote matters, issue resolutions and manage the accounts from which alimony, embargoes or compensation are paid, which have an average balance of 4,500 millions of euros. They also act as notaries public at hearings. In the civil registries they celebrate weddings, process previous marriage files or attest to nationality oaths.
The conflict that has now broken out for Minister Pilar Llop dates back more than a decade, when a procedural reform in 2009 lightened the tasks of judges and increased the powers of lawyers by 30%, although without increasing their remuneration. . After 12 years waiting for a salary adjustment, Justice and the unions agreed in April 2022 to improve the remuneration system for these officials through a supplement of 195 euros gross per month, which represents an increase of 5.26% in their annual salary.
After waiting more than a decade, the convening associations considered the aforementioned increase of 195 euros per month insufficient. The lawyers have demanded that the so-called “hook clause” be implemented, with which they wanted each lawyer to receive 85% of what the judges of their respective judicial bodies receive. They also claimed that the salary mass of the body of lawyers cannot be less than 85% of the salary mass of the judicial career. The department headed by Llop has not accepted this request and has finally proposed a remuneration improvement through the aforementioned “efficiency supplement”. The final document is expected to be closed this afternoon, according to Ministry sources.
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