The Official State Gazette publishes this Friday Royal Decree 2123/2008, of December 26, which among other things includes the creation of the Arrecife de Lanzarote-Puerto del Rosario Area Prosecutor's Office, which will serve the judicial districts of both islands. This organizational change means that Lanzarote will no longer function as a permanent assignment of the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Las Palmas and will have "a certain level of self-management", as explained last December by the senior prosecutor of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, Vicente Garrido.
To this end, the figure of a chief prosecutor will be created, who will also have the island of Fuerteventura under his orbit. In fact, the BOE announcement also includes the creation of that position, which will be filled through a competition of merits and capacity. Any prosecutor in Spain can apply for it, although, apparently, the prosecutor who assumed the role of coordinator in Lanzarote after the departure of Miguel Pallarés has a solid chance of occupying this position.
Increase in litigation
The reform of the fiscal structure in Lanzarote is part of a decree that includes organizational changes in several judicial districts of the country. The objective of the Ministry of Justice is to strengthen the functional autonomy and the hierarchical and organizational structure of the Public Prosecutor's Office, "taking into account the new circumstances in which prosecutors must carry out their work: a significant but constant increase in judicial litigation with the consequent impact on the processes in which the Public Prosecutor's Office must intervene" and "the complexity and multidisciplinary scope of the criminality against which the Rule of Law must act".
Throughout Spain, eleven new positions for area chief prosecutors will be created, including the one in Lanzarote, and, according to the BOE announcement, among other things, "a second regulatory provision is pending that, taking into account budgetary availabilities, completes the creation of the hundred positions for prosecutors programmed" and "adapts the staff to the needs derived from the commissioning of new bodies or other circumstances".
For the time being, in the new Arrecife de Lanzarote-Puerto del Rosario Area Prosecutor's Office there will be, in addition to the new chief prosecutor, a total of ten prosecutors and ten fiscal lawyers, according to the decree published this Friday in the BOE.