New increase in the judicial staff. The Government will approve the creation of another 500 positions for judges and 200 more for prosecutors. As EL MUNDO has learned, the start of the processing of both decrees will begin this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers where the agreement for urgent administrative processing of these 700 new positions for the judicial and fiscal careers for the year 2027 will foreseeably be approved.
Last July, the Executive already approved the creation of another 700 positions for judges and prosecutors, an unprecedented number in our country. This increase was possible thanks to the entry into force of the lower courts and, consequently, the decrease in the cost of setting up judicial positions.
The Ministry of Justice, headed by Félix Bolaños, is now promoting the programming of positions planned for next year with the aim of speeding up the procedures so that they can be approved before the general elections are held on November 29, government sources indicate.
It so happens that the new judicial model developed with the Efficiency Law, which eliminates the old courts made up of a single judge and his team of officials and replaces them with trial courts, allows the creation of a judicial position for approximately 100,000 euros, far from the half a million that it once cost to create a traditional court. Thus, creating 500 places represents an investment of around 55 million euros, while with the previous model the cost would have been 260 million euros.
Specifically, with the new draft royal decree - which creates another 500 judicial positions - the increase in the judicial staff will be 7.82%, which will bring the total number of judicial positions in our country to 6,887. The increase in the number of judges in Spain in the face of the existing deficit and the differential with the countries around us is a historic demand for the judicial career.
Strengthen social jurisdiction
On this occasion, as stated in the new royal decree, the content of which this newspaper has had access to, the Executive chooses to reinforce, above all, social jurisdiction with the implementation of 109 new positions, 21% of the total. The increase in cases in the Social Courts has not stopped and, currently, this jurisdiction shows a strong saturation that citizens suffer when they have to go to resolve, for example, labor issues.
Civil jurisdiction will also be reinforced with 102 new places for trial courts and 70 for provincial courts in different territories. The new royal decree also contemplates reinforcing the mixed bodies located in provinces and smaller towns, which will receive the creation of another 87 positions.
On the other hand, the criminal jurisdiction will also be increased with 69 more places, along with 11 new places for Violence against Women and six new places for Violence against Children and Adolescents.
The royal decree contemplates the creation of 42 new positions for Territorial Assignment Judges and, in a novel way, eight positions for presidencies released from lower courts. These squares already exist in large Spanish cities such as Madrid, Barcelona or Seville, among others, and will now be created in Murcia, Almería, Córdoba, Granada, La Coruña, Vigo, Santander and Valladolid.
Finally, the royal decree provides for the creation of four places in the Administrative Litigation Chamber of the National Court, which will be added to the 17 new places that were created this year.
An increase of 1045 judges
Sources from the Ministry of Justice emphasize that in this legislature, a total of 1,045 positions will be created, which they describe as a "historic increase" in the judicial workforce that will go from being made up of 5,842 judges to 6,887 positions in Spain.
Likewise, the Council of Ministers will begin processing this Tuesday the new draft royal decree that creates another 200 positions for prosecutors. In this case, the increase in the workforce will be 6.6%, which will bring the number of tax positions in our country to 3,204. In total, in the current legislature, 442 positions for members of the Public Ministry will be created in this way.
The new 700 planned positions will have to lead to a new macro call for opposition and to inexorably reinforce the staff of officials of the Administration of Justice, as admitted by sources from the Executive.
Once the Council of Ministers gives the green light to the start of urgent processing of these two new decrees, they will be sent to the CGPJ, the Fiscal Council, autonomies and the Ministry of Finance, among others. The goal is to have them approved before 29-N.
For their part, sources from the Executive transmit that this continuous increase in the number of judges and prosecutors seeks to ensure that citizens have judicial resolutions in shorter periods of time and that judges and magistrates have, in turn, more reasonable workloads.
