CCSS3 Unit 10: The Judiciary of Spain

Constitutional principles:

The Spanish Constitution guarantees respect for the essential principles necessary for the correct functioning of the judiciary:

Impartiality: to guarantee the assured effective judicial trusteeship to all citizens by the Constitution, judges must remain impartial in cases that they judge and must abstain from cases that they have no reason to enter into.

Independence: courts and tribunals are independent of all authority or people in the exercise of jurisdictional power.

Immobility: judges and magistrates are immobile and cannot be moved, suspended, separated or retired without cause and with guarantees established by law.

Responsibility: judges and magistrates are personally responsible for their disciplinary infractions and crimes committed in the exercise of their office; this responsibility can only be demanded by the established legal disciplinary tract, without interference by the executive or legislative branches of the government or through ordinary legal proceedings.

Legality: in the exercise of their jurisdictional functions, judges and magistrates are subject to the Constitution and to the rest of the laws just as other branches of government and citizens are.

The judiciary can be organized into different levels of territorial organisation. They are (from smallest to biggest): the judicial districts (which are the basic unit of the judiciary, covering one or several municipalities), the provinices, the autonomous communities, and the national-level courts.

 National Level Courts: The Supreme Court, The Constitutional Court, and the Audiencia Nacional

(1)The Supreme Court of Spain (Tribunal Supremo) is the highest judiciary body in Spain. It covers all jurisdictional orders and its rulings cannot be appealed, except to the (2)Constitutional Court, when one of the parties claims that their constitutional rights have been infringed. The (3)Audiencia Nacional, based in Madrid, has jurisdiction over the entire territory of the nation. It is composed of three halls that cover: (a) criminal jurisdiction (in cases pertaining to crimes against the Spanish Crown, terrorism, organized crime, counterfeiting and crimes committed in more than one jurisdiction), (b) administrative jurisdiction (in appeal cases against resolutions of ministers, secretaries of state, the Council of Ministers and the chiefs of staff of the armed forces, and (c) social jurisdiction (which involves cases pertaining to collective bargaining agreements that cover more than the territory of one autonomous community). The Audiencia Nacional also has specialized courts dealing with criminal inquiries, penitentiary surveillance and juvenile cases.

Officers of the court: Judges and magistrates

The Spanish Judiciary is a professional judiciary whose members are public servants divided into the three categories of judge, magistrate, and supreme court magistrate.

Entrance to the judiciary is limited to Spanish nationals who hold a Bachelors Degree in Law issued by a Spanish university. Applicants must pass a competitive state exam, a state exam with contest of merits, or a contest of merits. Selected applicants enter the Judiciary School where they take mandatory courses over a year, as well as carrying out practical courses as associate judges in courts and tribunals of the different jurisdictional orders. Candidate passing this course are then sworn in as judges, who work in alone in a courtroom. After three years they can become magistrates, which work on tribunals with other magistrates. Magistrates of the Supreme Court can be drafted in a contest of merits between prestigious jurists and lawyers with more than fifteen years of professional experience.

Judges and magistrates are banned from membership of political parties and trade unions, from issuing messages of congratulation or censuring public powers or official corporations, and from attending public meetings or rallies in their role as members of the judiciary.

Governance

Governance of the Spanish Judiciary is assigned to the General Council of the Judiciary (Consejo General de Poder Judicial or CGPJ). This constitutional body, although not a court in itself, is responsible for overseeing the work of all courts and tribunals of Spain, as well as of allocating judges and magistrates to each of them.

The General Council is composed of 20 members, twelve of who must be judges and magistrates and the remaining eight other jurists (lawyers, professors etc.) of renowned competence and with more than fifteen years professional experience. Of the twelve judges, six are elected by the Congress of Deputies and six by the Senate by three fifths supermajority from a list of thirty-six candidates proposed by professional associations of judges and magistrates according to the size of their membership or any independent candidate who obtains the endorsement of two percent of their colleagues. Of the eight jurists four are elected by the Congress of Deputies and four by the Senate by three fifths supermajority.

Questions: 1. What does it mean that judges must be “impartial?” 2. What is “immobility?” 3. What are the three national-level courts? 4. What is the difference between the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court? 5. What kinds of cases does the Audiencia Nacional deal with? 6. What is the difference between a judge and a magistrate? 7. How are Supreme Court Magistrates chosen? 8. Who watches over the Spanish judiciary? 9. How are those people chosen?