Justice and free defense for citizens who do not have financial resources to litigate, it is endorsed by article 119 of the Constitution and in this work, supported by 98% of Spaniards according to a recent survey by Metroscopia, the 45,000 lawyers assigned to the shift play a fundamental role ex officio – one in three of the total – who barely receive an average of 153 euros per lawsuit, a clearly insufficient amount for the work carried out. With very notable regional differences, ranging from 300 euros on average of the Basque Country to the only 100 of Andalusian public defenders, collections are usually delayed and not all actions are rewarded.
Despite the legislative effort involved in the Royal Decree 141/2021 approved last March, which reformed the Free Legal Assistance Regulations, modifying, among other things, the deadlines for payment of services to the Duty shift and establishing the monthly payment -before it was quarterly- in the so-called Ministry territory, some aspects remain to be improved, as recognized by those responsible for the General Council of the Legal Profession on the ‘VII Free Justice Conference‘held last week in Elche (Alicante). The update of the economic compensation for the duty shift was one of the demands raised by the lawyers, since the subsidy for the work has barely increased by 19 euros on average since 2016.
Another of the requests, in addition to the review of the scales, was the remuneration of all professional actions carried out by judicial appointment. They acknowledge that an opportunity has been lost for not having taken advantage of the March legal amendment to enable a procedure that guarantees the collection of the work already carried out by lawyers in cases of denial of the benefit of free justice for causes attributable to the defendant or in cases in which the action taken is not included in the Service remuneration scale.
The stoppage of justice for the Covid reduced by 19% the issues of duty shift, although the arrival of immigrants to the Canary Islands triggered the processes in the islands
Appointing in the duty shift has a lot of altruism, vocation and professionalism and for many young lawyers it is a source of income, to cover their first expenses, and a way of getting experience and struggling in court, especially in the criminal field. According to the data collected in the latest Report of the Free Justice Observatory that are prepared jointly by the General Council of Spanish Lawyers and the Foundation Wolters KluwerIn 2020, the year of the coronavirus pandemic, there was a decrease in official shift procedures, which fell by 19%, although the number of cases was around 1.6 million.
Investment in free justice also fell by about 14% and amounted to only 245 million. While the public defender grant it barely increased and what was received by procedure was barely 10% of what was received by a lawyer outside the court office for similar matters. Only in Canary Islands there was a significant increase in free trials, mainly due to the disembarkation of immigrants on the islands during the past year. The average annual investment per citizen for free justice was only 5.16 euros, compared to 6.08 in 2019, but it is still higher than the European average, which is around 4.5 euros, although in the Nordic countries reaches 20.
The public defender has 35 cases per year on average. The new law sets the access requirements, but the scales are still not updated
One of the positive aspects that the Legal Profession has highlighted about the new free justice regulation is that it details for the first time in a norm with legal rank the requirements to access the duty shift, including having sole or main office in the field of the college responsible for the service and be enrolled in it. The second requirement is to have three years of membership, something that some consider excessive, “the Master’s degree would suffice,” he said. Javier Manuel Martin Garcia, Dean of the College of Valladolid. The third condition is to have passed the courses or entrance exam established by the schools to access the service.
Applicants for free justice can claim from the administrations the payment of fees, prior advice, the defense and representation of a lawyer and a solicitor, the payment of fees to file appeals, expert assistance and / or a reduction of 80% of the fees corresponding to public deeds and obtaining copies and testimonies. The payment of lawyers, who barely face 35 cases a year on average, often even forces them to put their own money to carry out their work, which involves transfers, bureaucratic procedures, infrastructure and resources, meetings and a lot of work.
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