Justice returns to 56 police the medal to the value that a magistrate had withdrawn | Spain
Justice has restored the medals to the value granted by the Ministry of Interior in September of 2022 to 56 national police and that a magistrate of the National Court had retired A year ago, considering that its award was not properly motivated. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the same Judicial Body, in response to the resources presented by at least eight of the award-ups and by the General Directorate of the Police, has returned to the agents these decorations, which have rigged A life economic gratification. The four magistrates of the Quinta section now consider, unlike the judge who annulled her delivery, that there were no « determining vices of radical nullity » in their award by the department of Fernando Grande-Marlaska.
The new sentence, which is appealable, concludes that the police unions – four of which they denounced irregularities in the granting of all or part of those medals – are not legitimized to challenge these types of decisions provided that their advisory role has been respected in the adjudication procedure, as the magistrates that occurred in this case consider. The decorations that are restored are seven silver medals to commissioners who retired, and 49 red crosses to active agents.
Among the latter there are 12 inspectors, 6 sub -inspectors and 12 officers. The rest are agents of the basic scale, according to union sources. Part of these police officers participated in dangerous operations against drug trafficking in the Gibraltar field, facing violent groups in extreme conditions or intervened in the evacuation of Spaniards of Ukraine when the Russian invasion began. These recognitions have an increase of 15% of the base salary and trienniums in the case of silver crosses, and a 10% rise for those with a red distinctive.
The resolution considers that the police unions « are legitimized in terms of their participation in the procedure », which establishes that they should be convened, but that « they do not hold legitimation to challenge income in the order of police merit » because they have no benefit or damage, except that of mere legality. In addition, it emphasizes that « the constitutional doctrine about the legitimation of trade union organizations excludes the assumptions of defense of the individual rights of the members of the organization, when they do not affect it. » Therefore, he concludes that the unions have legitimacy to challenge it, in terms of their role in the procedure, but no, to do so with the concrete concession of the decorations.
The sentence recalls that the unions that claimed the cancellation of the medals discussed in their contentious-administrative appeal that would have been made in a « adequate » audience process, « but above all the granting of the decorations, the criteria for which the medals should be granted or not. » The Room Discrepa from the judgment appealed, which appreciated full nullity in certain appointments, for having ignored the participation of the unions in the process. « There are no procedural vices that the judgment imputes to the procedure, » he contemplates, or « determining vices of radical nullity. » « If you attend, it would be the most of defects of form, which could not cause helplessness to the unions. »
The police unions that claimed to the justice that these medals were withdrawn in two procedures that ended up joining (on the one hand, UFP, Jupol, CEP, and on the other SUP) have received the judicial resolution with a mixture of joy and sadness. On the one hand, they congratulate the red medals, granted to active agents for outstanding services in which they put their lives at risk, and that ended up being annulled within this same procedure, they will be returned to their owners. On the other, they lament the effects that the Court argue will have for future procedures.
Police unions have been especially belligerent with the use that the Ministry of Interior has made for many years of these medals. In fact, it is not the first time that they take their concession to the courts because they consider themselves unfairly granted to complement pensions of high police officers. They have also criticized that their concession is still governed by a law of 1964, whose repeal and replacement have also claimed. Interior sources admit that this is a pending subject, but also that it is “complex” to elaborate a rule for the criteria to award the decorations conform to the current police activity. Every year, the National Police spends more than 11 million euros to pay the life pensions generated by the more than 4,600 pensioned medals granted in the last 45 years.
