"We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller...". Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The General Council of the Judiciary must appoint a new magistrate (or female magistrate) to the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court in a few days. Its coverage will be carried out through the so-called "fifth shift", which is a system of access to the Judicial Career from among "lawyers and other jurists, of prestige and recognized experience, who have carried out their professional activity for more than fifteen years."
The democratic anomaly is that only men inhabit the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, a true devaluation of the Equality Law in the bowels of Justice.
The glass ceiling continues to be insurmountable for women in almost all economic sectors, and with greater virulence, in the domes of all powers from where the decisions that move the world are made. The judiciary is a paradigmatic example of the professional castration of judges, who, although they are a majority in the profession, are systematically made invisible in the official photo of justice in which there is no trace of them, even in the paintings that adorn the walls. A black and white judicial image typical of other centuries in which women had fewer rights than our minors today.
Gender discrimination in the judiciary has its origins in Spain in the historical legal prohibition on women accessing the judicial career under the powerful reason of having in these jobs attitudes contrary to the "sense of delicacy consubstantial in women", until Law 96/1966 repealed the prohibition on women accessing the judicial career.
Fifty years after legalizing female judges, the brakes on female magistrates in their professional advancement are not even subtle.
In January 2015, the CGPJ agreed to award the presidency of the Superior Court of Justice of Murcia to a magistrate, against the candidate Pilar Alonso Saura, who surpassed him in curricular merits and who was 1,160 positions above him. Obviously, the Supreme Court (TS) annulled this agreement in a ruling of May 10, 2016 due to the absence of motivation in the evaluative prevalence of a specific merit of those included in the call, "the action plan", presented by the male candidate, compared to the objective superiority of the other candidate in all the remaining merits listed in the call's bases. The perplexity came later, when on May 26, 2016, against all odds, and for the second time, the Council re-designated the same candidate.
In March 2016, something similar happened with magistrate Angels Vivas. She was dismissed for the presidency of the Provincial Court of Barcelona, designating for such a high judicial position a man of inferior seniority and more than 1,200 positions below Vivas.
This is the gender radiography in the current composition of the Spanish Supreme Court: Only 10 female magistrates (12'19%) out of a total of 82 members who are distributed in five chambers, one per jurisdiction.
The Social Chamber of the Supreme Court is composed of 13 people, of whom 4 are women (30'8%)
The Contentious-Administrative Chamber is composed of 37 members and 4 are women (10'8%).
The Criminal Chamber only has one female magistrate (who joined in 2014) out of a total of 15 (6'7%).
In the Military Chamber, only one female magistrate has been known (who currently serves in the CGPJ) out of a total of 8 members (12'5%).
And although the female representation in the judicial leadership is meager (despite being 52% of the judicial career), it is non-existent in the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, which currently does not have any female magistrate among its nine members (0%).
The above acquires special gravity if we take into account that in the civil jurisdiction, appeals related to custody and family matters are resolved, which currently do not incorporate the experience of women when interpreting and applying the legal system. Judicial decisions are enriched with the perspective of both sexes, because that is the complete view of our society.
Social diversity must be reflected in the composition of the highest judicial body. Therefore, it is urgent to achieve an egalitarian justice, not only exogenous, but also endogenous, guaranteeing diverse integration and balanced participation of men and women as a requirement of democratic legitimacy.
We women are half of society and not 0%
The UN already warned of this democratic deficiency of the Spanish judiciary in its report dated June 17, 2015 of the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice in Spain, collecting among its conclusions:
"The rate of participation of women in the Cortes Generales, of 37'5%, is one of the highest in the world. The same does not happen, however, in other spheres of political and public life, particularly in the highest levels of local, regional and central administration, in the judiciary or in the diplomatic service."
Therefore, the Spanish State is recommended to implement special temporary measures to achieve gender balance in the highest levels of the judiciary, where the representation of women is purely anecdotal.
A pathology of democracy
The absence of women in positions of social relevance is a pathology of the democracies of this century. The changes necessary to achieve an egalitarian society are accelerated when women are incorporated in all social, political, cultural or judicial spheres in a balanced and fair way, and especially in the high hierarchies of the judiciary from where the most important decisions for citizens are made. The opportunity to integrate women into a justice chamber barren of them is now open. The opportunity to advance in equality is open. More women, more justice.
Gloria Poyatos Matas Magistrate of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands
Article published in The Huffington Post
