You can be forgiven for not noticing that law-court staff are on strike, given that judicial activities appear glacial as far as progress goes.
Nevertheless, they are indeed on strike and have been since the 17th of April, meaning that if you have a case coming up, don’t hold your breath.
The fact is that these stoppages have been partial but from yesterday they are now total. Having said that, cases involving people being held in custody are going forward.
Over on the Malaga side of the border over a thousand cases have been suspended.
Now judges and public prosecutors have called for strike action starting on the 16th of this month, having not had a rise in salary in a decade.
In fact, according to research carried out by the Association of Judges and Magistrates (the second largest such judicial association in Spain) there are 85 law courts of the First Instance in Spain where they receive 50 centimes an hour (gross) when on duty outside normal court hours.
There are another 1,400 law course who are paid three euros (gross) an hour when on duty (night court, etc). Add to the above the increase in work load during normal hours.
Back to the strike of court functionaries, just in Andalucía there are 8,000 of them. In the city of Granada yesterday, dozens were out protesting, bearing banners claiming, “Without Us There Is No Justice.”
They complain that the Ministry of Justice doesn’t want to enter into negotiations with them about how their working condition will be affected by the Governments new law, Organic Law of Organizational Efficiency (LOEO) as well as their salaries.
They are far from pleased that when judges and public prosecutors told the Government that they would be going on strike on the 16th of May, the Government immediately offered more money (the judges and p/ps said that it was a good start, but not enough) yet the chupatintas (pen pushers) in judicial offices have been calling partial strikes since the 17th of last month to no avail, which is why they are going on full-out strike from today.
Anyway, that’s how things stand at the moment.
(News: Granada, Andalucia)