Two different chambers of the Supreme Court have issued contradictory rulings on a matter that affects almost two million people: the doubling of leave for single-parent families for the birth of a child. That is, the only parent can enjoy the weeks that would correspond to the other in the case of a two-parent family. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber agreed a week ago with a professor from Castilla y León after another chamber, the Social Chamber, which has denied this right to dozens of women claimants who are not public employees in resolutions for more of one year. Many of these women have already taken their case to the Constitutional Court, which these days has begun to accept their appeals for processing. The families, made up mostly of women, expect a unique response from the judges.
The case that has opened the door is that of Eva, a teacher at a school in Castilla y León. Her son was born at the end of 2020, but she verified that her case was not the same as that of a co-worker who had given birth on very similar dates, in which she and her partner could take turns taking leave to care for the newborn. at home for longer. “I saw the comparative grievance,” he tells elDiario.es a few days after receiving the ruling from the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favor after four years of litigation. “When I found out about the resolution I started to cry with joy, it was a brutal feeling although this comes four years late, but the feeling of being able to contribute my grain of sand to the fight for equality is an immense pride,” he explains.
Eva is a public employee of the Junta de Castilla y León and that is why her case was processed through contentious-administrative proceedings. A court agreed with him, but the Superior Court of Justice denied his claim: that his 16 weeks of leave be extended to 26, adding those that the other parent in a two-parent family would have also enjoyed. Weeks, he indicates, that can be key to raising a baby. “I was able to spend a few months of savings, but if not, it means paying for daycare or looking for a family network that is often not available to be able to respond to the needs of a newborn,” he remembers.
The right of children
Her case fell into the hands of the Third Chamber and had Pilar Teso, candidate to preside over the General Council of the Judiciary, as a speaker. The antecedents were not promising: to date, another chamber of the same court – which studied all lawsuits filed by women who are not public employees – had said that there was no such right to duplicate permits. “The background was not good at all, but it is true that hope is the last thing to be lost,” says Eva.
This Social Chamber said for the first time in March 2023 that a single-parent family did not have the right to double that leave. The main reason was that, according to the department in charge of resolving labor disputes between citizens and Social Security or companies, it was an important matter that should not be resolved by ruling, but rather through a legal change. “An intervention of such caliber is far from what the constitutional organization of the State entrusts to the judges and courts,” the Supreme Court said then.
Today, the Supreme Court rules, there is “discrimination between minors” due to the “undoubted harm” of those who “are deprived early of the care that one of their parents provides with their constant presence.”
Until then, the different territorial courts resolved this type of claims in different ways. But a detail to which little attention had been paid opened a new avenue last week: the claims of single-parent families of public workers that were resolved by a different jurisdiction. And in this case the Third Chamber of the Supreme Court, with Teso at the helm of the deliberations, opened the debate on the other hand: the regulations, above all, cannot discriminate against some children compared to others due to the fact of being born in a single parent family.
This new ruling from the Supreme Court recognizes that the law, as such, does not recognize the right of these families to double their permits. There is, said the Supreme Court, a “lack of specific legal provision,” but what is at stake, the judges added, “is equality among newborn minors.” And today, the Supreme Court decides, there is “discrimination between minors that is qualified by the undoubted harm suffered by those who are deprived early of the care that one of their parents provides with their constant presence.”
“A lot of joy and prudence”
The latest data available from the National Statistics Institute reflect that in Spain there are almost two million single-parent families and that the vast majority are made up of women. And from the groups that bring together these families they denounce a legal abandonment similar to that indicated in the Supreme Court ruling. “I feel in a legal vacuum, there is no talk of single-parent families in almost any case. There is no clear definition of what we are. There is an urgent need for legislative change and a definition that can make it clear to us, for example, who has access to certain aid. That society understands what this family is and what needs it has,” explains Eva.
Pilar Castellanos, president of the Association of Single Mothers by Choice, explains to elDiario.es that the ruling has sown confusion by deciding in the opposite direction to what they had to analyze only a year and a half ago. “We have received it with prudence, with great joy, on the one hand, and prudence on the other,” he explains to this newspaper.
We are continually in legal limbo. There are large families and we all know what it is and the rights they have; single parents, no
Pilar Castellanos
— president of the Association of Single Mothers by Choice
The Association is clear that this duplication of permits must be extended to children from single-parent families and they defend that it be done through a law. “It makes no sense that we are achieving everything by judicializing inequalities. Any minor should have the same right, regardless of whether they are born into the family they are born to. And the child gets sick just the same and has the same right to the same care. “We don’t want them to give us free daycare, we want to be with our sons and daughters.”
The solution, says Castellanos, is to be recognized in a family law “where what a single-parent family is is defined.” “We are continually in legal limbo. There are large families and we all know what it is and the rights they have; single parents, no.” The legislator, he affirms, “has to take the bull by the horns, have high-mindedness and stop treating us as if we were a trading card when they are interested in us.”
The judicial journey of this matter has not ended in the Supreme Court. Since the first negative ruling in 2023, dozens of women have appealed to the Constitutional Court against the rulings and rulings that denied them the extension of their permits to be equal to a two-parent family. This same Monday, according to sources from this court telling elDiario.es, the two chambers of the Constitutional Court accepted a dozen appeals for processing that, in any case, are conditioned to a single debate: when the plenary session resolves the issue of unconstitutionality that weighs about this part of the regulations that, according to families, represents effective discrimination against their children.
The case will be resolved by María Luisa Segoviano, a judge from the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court, who handed down the ruling that denied that right to single-parent families who do not work for the State. But that sentence was not unanimous and many families cling to that. A judge, Rosa Virolés, issued a dissenting opinion in which she was forceful: “The affected person had the right to the benefit she seeks,” she said, recalling that the judges themselves did take into account the best interests of the minor, for example in cases such as those surrogate wombs.
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