The TC rejects the appeal of the PP and endorses the decree on equality in employment by appreciating an "urgent need"

The conservative block disagrees and defends that the decree law is not "a blank check" but "an exceptional remedy"

MADRID, 21 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Constitutional Court (TC) has rejected in its plenary session on Tuesday the appeal of the PP against the decree of urgent measures to guarantee equal treatment and opportunities between women and men in employment, considering that the Government sufficiently justifies the situation of "extraordinary and urgent necessity" that is required to legislate in this way, given the "discreet" results of the existing regulations until then.

As reported by the TC, the Plenary has endorsed by majority the sentence proposed by the president of the court of guarantees, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, according to which the Government has complied with the requirements of article 86.1 of the Constitution, which calls for a situation of "extraordinary and urgent need" to issue provisional legislative provisions in the form of decree-laws.

The sentence understands that there are compelling reasons to appreciate such a situation in view of "the discrete, if not insignificant results" achieved up to that moment by the legal regulation on the matter, Organic Law 3/2007, as well as "the delay that was taking place in the effective realization of equality between men and women", which --he reasons-- demanded an immediate normative action through the elaboration of a new articulated, integral and transversal text.

For the Plenary, there is an "adequate connection between said situation of need and the measures articulated in the decree law, which affect a total of seven legal texts, aimed at putting an end to the persistence of inequalities in working conditions between men and women who inflict damage on women that is difficult to repair, and that is difficult to accept in a modern society like Spain".

The Constitutional also highlights "the intimate connection of the measures adopted with the individual sphere of the person and the free development of the personality, as well as its deep links with fundamental provisions of the Constitution (...), dealing with issues of the highest relevance that demanded an absolutely immediate normative action".

In the opinion of the TC, public action aimed at achieving these objectives did not admit "any delay, not even the one that would entail completing the legislative processing of the bills that were in progress at the time of the approval of the decree law."

Consequently, the ruling rules out that the Government has made an abusive or arbitrary use of the allegation of the existence of a situation of "extraordinary and urgent need."

However, the ruling has the joint particular vote formulated by the magistrates Ricardo Enríquez, Enrique Arnaldo, César Tolosa and Concepción Espejel, the four members of the so-called conservative bloc.

For them, the fact that the Executive Power issues norms with the force of law should be an exception, since it affects the separation of powers and makes it impossible for popular representatives to debate and, where appropriate, approve such norms, undermining the democratic principle. "The decree law is not an alternative to the law, nor a blank check, but an exceptional remedy for cases of extraordinary and urgent need," they argue.

These magistrates believe that "the Constitutional Court should not give up on the control function of the decree laws" because its task is to "guarantee the preeminence of the only norm that is an expression of the constituent power", for which they urge not to confuse "necessity with political expediency or opportunity or with extraordinary and urgent need".

"Neither should the correctness of the measures be confused with the justification of urgency, nor should the Government be substituted in that function of justification by the allegations of the State attorney, nor be it considered that justifying is the same as establishing apodictic affirmations or explaining the measures", point out, as stated by the Constitutional Court in its statement.

In his opinion, in this case "the need to use an urgent and exceptional rule is not justified, avoiding processing by the ordinary legislative procedure, also taking into account that it was a rule of the utmost importance, which forced the Government to extreme zeal when justifying and reasoning the urgency that was the basis of his decision to resort to an exceptional rule".