Last September, the Venia Lawyers Union requested the Ministry of Justice to establish a working table in which this Union would participate together with the Ministry of Justice and Autonomous Communities with transferred powers in matters of Justice, in order to initiate a dialogue on some of our national demands.
To date, the Ministry has not only remained silent, but has announced a miserable 5% increase in the scales of legal aid. The lawyers and solicitors of legal aid who have been demanding a decent increase in scales and the payment of all their actions, consider that there is no other way out than the call for a national and indefinite strike that will begin on November 21, 2023.
The situation of lawyers and solicitors of legal aid, and the legal profession and the procuracy in general, is dramatic, so the response to our fair demands cannot wait. This desperation has achieved the impossible, achieving unanimity in the legal profession and the procuracy on the street, also organized in other associations and platforms of the legal profession on the street.
The legal profession and the procuracy on the street are orphaned of institutional protection (General Councils, Autonomous Councils and Bar Associations and Solicitors). However, their collaboration will be requested in order to know their intention to support the lawyers who, with their economic effort, are covering an essential public service. The strike is a fundamental right and cannot be denied to those who act dependently on both the Colleges and the Administration.
12 demands
1st) Legal regulation of the professional on duty.
2nd) Decent remuneration paid in a timely manner.
3rd) Remuneration of all actions performed for which we have been designated and of availability times.
4th) Payment of the costs incurred by the professional when providing the service.
5th) In the event of definitive denial of the ajg, it is the administration that will pay the professional and claim from the citizen, not the designated professional.
6th) Annual update of remuneration according to CPI.
7th) Contribution to social security, with retroactive effects.
8th) Right to reconciliation, rest and digital disconnection.
9th) Reduction of the bureaucratic burden.
10th) Right to free training.
11th) Recognition of the condition of authority.
12th) Awareness campaigns to make the profession visible and dignified
2nd.- Who calls the strike?
This union calls it, as well as various associations and platforms. The call will be formalized by the Venia Union, as it is a legally constituted union as such and has legitimacy for this purpose. The Call is addressed to all lawyers and solicitors in general and to lawyers and solicitors of the legal aid in particular.
3rd.- Will there be minimum services?
Yes, according to those determined by the competent authority as minimums. However, it is foreseeable, as already happened in the strike of lawyers called in Galicia this year, for the lawyers that the
competent authority, presumably, for not knowing or wanting, will not articulate those minimum services, so the essential ones will be determined by the Venia Union.
4th.- Will it cause inconvenience to citizens who use the Administration of Justice?
Inevitably, and like any strike, but they will probably be less than those caused by the strikes of the staff of the Administration of Justice this year, and which are expected to resume as soon as a new Government of the Nation is constituted.
5th.- How will the Venia Union support the lawyers and solicitors who go on strike?
With our working group in which we participate together with other associations and platforms. In addition, on the Venia Union website we have enabled the strike space. Rights are conquered, and lost rights are reconquered. We do not want to be accomplices any longer of a guard and legal aid service that we provide at a ridiculous cost to the Administration, in conditions of exploitation, unworthy of the 21st century. We trust that all lawyers and solicitors will join this call since it is impossible to continue in this situation. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose. It's time to defend ourselves.
Eduardo Máximo Morato López / Lawyer / Delegate Venia Union in Lanzarote
