The PP questions the minister in Congress on the 17th day of the indefinite strike
MADRID, 15 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, has assured that she is “in a position” to have an “honest dialogue” with the Lawyers of the Administration of Justice (LAJ) who have been on an indefinite strike since January 24, while at the same time He highlighted the labor improvements that have already been applied from his department to this body of officials.
This has been pronounced in the Congress of Deputies in the framework of an urgent interpellation urged by the PP to request explanations about the indefinite strike of LAJ that this Wednesday reaches its day number 17 and that, according to data from the conveners, has led to the suspension of about 146,000 views.
Llop’s intervention takes place just one day before Justice sits at the table with the lawyers’ associations for the first time since the break began. “The Ministry that I lead is in a position to have an honest dialogue with the LAJ,” he said.
The ‘popular’ deputy Luis Santamaría has disgraced the minister who has not yet met with the calling associations when the strike began on January 24. “Solve the labor problems of his Ministry now”, he snapped at him and then added: “Solve it, because that is his responsibility.”
Llop has assured that it seems to him a “chance” that the PP presents an urgent question about the conflict with the lawyers one day before the meeting. “They are instrumentalizing the strike for their own partisan benefit”, he pointed out at the time that he has had an impact on the fact that they have questioned Congress this Wednesday to get “political credit”.
“It is no longer just that this interpellation is totally opportunistic on your part. It is that reality is stubborn. When you were in the Government, nothing was done with the LAJ group,” he asserted.
In line, the head of Justice has urged the ‘popular’ leader that “if they truly support the strike, say what is your true opinion on the down payment clause” that the lawyers are demanding.
Thus, he has asked if the PP is in favor of the LAJ charging 85% of what a judge charges. “Do you agree or not? Be honest with the judges and magistrates and with yourselves,” she said.
Llop has reviewed the improvements achieved so far: from the renewal of the pool of substitute lawyers, the investment in telematic means and the regularization of the call for oppositions. “We have already done all of this,” he stressed and then also pointed out the 5.26% pay increase in the annual salary of the LAJ.
“It is one of the bodies that has had the highest remuneration increase in this legislature”, pointed out the head of Justice, while recalling that the payment for tickets and registrations has in turn increased, in addition to the increase that corresponds to the functionaries.
Thus, the minister has stressed that “the remuneration debate cannot be honest by omitting important increases”. But she has stressed that “even having carried out all these measures” they are “open to dialogue.”
Finally, he has recognized that his Ministry is “sensitive” to the claims of the LAJ and has insisted that it is “an indispensable body.”
The lawyers maintain that the conflict that has its origin in “the lack of salary adequacy to the greater functions and responsibilities attributed by Law 13/2009, discharged to the judges, and increased in successive reforms”, especially that of 2015, which which – denounced the three convening associations – has caused an “unbearable imbalance”.
They 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 Law 11/ 2020 of the General State Budget for 2021”.
The Secretary of State for Justice, Antonio ‘Tontxu’ Rodríguez, has come to say on several occasions that the LAJ strike is a “political” measure that is “out of place”.
