The majority of the plenary session of the Constitutional Court has decided to reject the appeal of the Popular Party that questioned the regulations with which the Government extended paternity leave progressively in 2019 until it was equated with maternity leave. A royal decree-law that also forced companies with more than 50 workers to have equality plans, to take transparency measures for salary tables or the recovery of the contribution of women who care for dependent relatives.
The Government approves this Friday new paternity permits: 16 weeks, non-transferable and with the possibility of taking turns with the mother
Further
The PP questioned, among other aspects, the legislative path followed by the Government: that it go through the urgent route, accusing the executive of Pedro Sánchez of electoralism in this measure.
The plenary of the Constitutional Court, with four conservative votes against, rejects these allegations. The sentence understands that the Government explained “sufficiently” the situation of urgency and necessity that justifies the urgency of processing the legal project. There are, he says, “compelling reasons” when noting the “discreet results, if not insignificant” achieved since the entry into force of 2007 of the Law on equality between men and women. It also highlights “the delay that was taking place in the effective realization of equality between men and women, which required immediate regulatory action through the development of a new text.”
The majority of the guarantee court confirms that there was “an adequate connection” between this “situation of necessity” and the measures of this legal text that affected seven different laws, aimed at “putting an end to the persistence of inequalities in working conditions between men and women who cause women damage that is difficult to repair, difficult to accept in a modern society like the Spanish one”.
With a presentation by President Cándido Conde-Pumpido, the Constitutional Court understands that all the issues dealt with in this regulation were of “maximum relevance” and “required absolutely immediate regulatory action.” The executive, therefore, did not abuse this allegation of urgent need to process the project urgently.
four votes against
The sentence, according to the guarantee court, has four contrary votes from the four members of the conservative sector: Enrique Arnaldo, Concepción Espejel, César Tolosa and Ricardo Enríquez. Four members of the plenary who understand that this type of urgent processing of the rules should be “an exception”, without the decree-law being accepted as a “blank check” for the central executive.
This dissenting particular vote understands that the Constitution should not study this type of resources and laws based on “political opportunity.” “Neither should the correctness of the measures be confused with the justification of urgency, nor should the Government be replaced in that justification function by the allegations of the State lawyer,” the four reproach. “The need to use an urgent and exceptional rule is not justified, avoiding processing by the ordinary legislative procedure,” they settle.
