The Government has put on the table this Monday a new offer of salary increase for judges and prosecutors and, according to sources of the negotiation, it will be the last to try to avoid the indefinite strike that five of the seven associations that represent both careers have summoned from next May 16. The Executive’s proposal comes after judges and prosecutors rejected the first offer, raised last Wednesday and which would imply allocating 44.5 million euros more per year to the salaries of both bodies. Although sources from the judges initially described the proposal as “good”, the associations consider it insufficient and at this Monday’s meeting of the remuneration table they have demanded new improvements. The Government has offered an increase of close to 500 euros per month, according to negotiating sources, and the associations have agreed to reply on Wednesday. At the moment, the strike call remains pending what they decide next Wednesday.
The remuneration table will meet again in two days and sources present at the meeting on Monday take it for granted that the agreement has to be closed in that session. What is not clear is whether the Government will agree to grant the increase without all the associations joining, since while the two that bring together the progressive wing of the sector (Judges and Judges for Democracy and the Progressive Union of Prosecutors) have shown Those with a conservative tendency (Professional Association of the Magistracy, Francisco de Vitoria Judicial Association, Independent Judicial Forum, Association of Prosecutors and Independent Professional Association of Prosecutors) have shown more doubts and are going to consult their associates. According to negotiating sources, the Professional Association of the Magistracy (the APM), the majority of the race and with a conservative tendency, has been the one that has shown a more intransigent position, demanding increases much higher than the Government’s proposal and distancing itself from proposals of consensus that all the associations carried.
For the agreement to be effective, it is not necessary for all the associations to sign it, even the Government could make the salary increase effective without any association signing the pact, although the sources rule out this option. The option that some sources consulted see as the most likely is that the agreement is closed with the signing of some associations. Those that do not will then have to decide whether to strike after the government has raised their wages. Other sources doubt that the Government will close the agreement if the conservative associations do not withdraw the strike call and, at least the APM, does not seem, for the moment, willing to withdraw it.
Both parties have promised not to disclose, for now, the terms of the latest offer, but negotiating sources indicate that it is higher than the one closed with the lawyers of the Administration of Justice, with increases of between 430 and 450 euros and that put an end to two months of indefinite strike by that body. According to these sources, the salary increase proposed by the Government for judges and prosecutors is close, in some cases, to 500 euros per month, the figure that most associations have requested at the meeting on Wednesday. Justice and the Treasury have presented it as a salary adaptation to the new demands that the efficiency laws promoted by the Government present for both careers.
The increase would be applied to the destination supplement, one of those charged by all judges and prosecutors, and would mean that the Government allocates 46.7 million euros more to the salaries of both bodies than now (last Wednesday’s offer was 44.5 million). The Executive has offered that this amount be distributed in a similar increase for all judges and prosecutors or that it be distributed in such a way that either the salary of judges who now earn less is increased more and is added to a lesser extent to those who they charge more; or else it is done the other way around and the salary of judges and prosecutors of higher courts is improved more and less for those of the base.
Salary adequacy
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At the meeting on Tuesday, the ministries of Justice and Finance, the associations of judges and prosecutors and the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) sat down again. The objective is to study an adequacy of the salaries of judges and prosecutors in compliance with the remuneration law for both careers, which establishes that the remuneration table will meet every five years to study this adequacy, something that has not happened. The salary of judges and prosecutors is a sum of a base salary and several supplements, which depend on the position, seniority, destination, the objectives achieved and other special compensation. According to data from the CGPJ, Spanish judges earn between 52,534.52 (judges with less seniority and assigned to smaller municipalities) and 137,935.07 (the president of the National Court). In the Supreme Court, the salaries range between the 109,072.40 euros that a magistrate receives and the 132,769.12 that the president receives (the current one, being in office, does not receive this amount, but that corresponding to the president of the room, 111,986 .44 euros).
The associations have not come up with a common proposal, although they all agree that there are aspects such as guards and the supplement per population group (which varies depending on the place of duty of the judge or prosecutor and is higher in larger municipalities) that should change. The CGPJ and the Prosecutor’s Office support the associations’ claim. Also the dean judges of the courts of all Spain, who, gathered in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in a national conference, have shown their “resolute and firm support” to the demands of the associations. “It is essential to adjust the remuneration of the judicial career according to the responsibility of our function and the work overload that we have been enduring for years,” they said in a statement released this Monday, in which they added: “We hope, for the benefit of the Administration of Justice, and to prevent judges from being forced to exercise our right to strike, that an agreement be reached that satisfies the just claims that have been historically claimed by the judicial career”.
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