Judges and prosecutors request a meeting with Justice to address salary improvements such as LAJ

They demand that the Ministry convene the remuneration table that contemplates a 2003 law

MADRID, 28 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The four judicial associations --APM, AJFV, FJI and JJpD-- and the Association of Prosecutors (AF) --the majority in the prosecutor's career-- have requested a meeting with the Ministry of Justice to discuss salary improvements, in the context of the negotiations between the Lawyers of the Administration of Justice (LAJ) and the department of Pilar Llop for the indefinite strike that the body began on January 24 to demand salary improvements.

In a joint statement sent internally to the judicial career, to which Europa Press has had access, the judicial associations recall that, together with the AF, last year they filed "a lawsuit to order the administration to convene the table of remuneration, as it is obliged to do, in the terms provided in the first additional provision of Law 15/2003, of May 26, regulating the remuneration system for judicial and fiscal careers".

"In view of the events that have occurred in recent weeks and which are known to all, it seems that now there is that willingness to negotiate on the part of the Ministry of Justice and also the ability to give a budgetary response to economic claims," ​​explained the Professional Association of the Magistracy, the Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association, the Independent Judicial Forum and Judges for Democracy.

For this reason, the four signatories explain, "we have requested the urgent and immediate convocation of a meeting to undertake the adaptation of our wages and to effectively comply with Law 15/2003".

For its part, the AF has issued its own statement in which it indicates that, "since the Ministry of Justice has been holding meetings with the strike committee of the LAJ associations in recent weeks to discuss their compensation claims", they have asked Llop to "urgently" summon them to "a meeting to undertake the labor and remuneration improvements" that they have been demanding.

The legal sources consulted by Europa Press explain that the associations demand that this first additional provision be complied with, according to which, "in order to facilitate the periodic adaptation of the remuneration of the members of the judicial and fiscal careers", every five years It will bring together a commission made up of representatives of the Ministries of Justice and Finance, the General Council of the Judiciary, the Prosecutor's Office and professional associations.

The same sources affirm that since the approval of said law, in 2003, there have only been formal meetings but without content, for which reason they consider that there has not been effective compliance with the obligation to convene the remuneration table to review the income of judicial and prosecutorial careers.

In this regard, the aforementioned sources specify that in recent months there have been several contacts with the Ministry to obtain this meeting, getting Justice to commit to calling it, although it was finally suspended.

Thus, the sources point out that, since Llop's department seems to have shown a willingness to negotiate with other groups in the administration of justice, such as the LAJ, the five associations have decided to take the initiative to try to sit at the remuneration table.

The LAJ began an indefinite strike on January 24, called by the Progressive Union of Lawyers of the Justice Administration (UPSJ), the Independent Association of Lawyers (AinLAJ) and the Illustrious National College of Lawyers, which has already caused the suspension of some 223,000 views and trials and the blocking of some 800 million euros in court accounts, according to calculations by the conveners.

The conflict between Justice and the LAJ has its origin in "the lack of salary adequacy to the greater functions and responsibilities attributed by Law 13/2009, discharged to judges, and increased in successive reforms", especially that of 2015, which which -- denounced the strikers -- has caused an "unbearable imbalance."

The conveners point out as a "trigger" of the conflict the agreement that Justice signed in December 2021 with the unions of the general bodies "without properly developing the salary adjustment to the latest procedural reforms provided for in the second paragraph of Additional Provision 157 of the Law 11/2020 of the General State Budget for 2021".

After three weeks of hiatus, the parties met for the first time on February 16 for more than fifteen hours. This same Tuesday they are holding their fourth meeting without reaching any agreement so far, although they have exchanged proposals whose content they have agreed not to reveal to favor the success of the talks.