As the legislature seems to be drawing to a close, it is time to take stock. It has been more than eight years of unprecedented conflict between the Judiciary and the government of Pedro Sánchez, even after renewing its governing body in June 2024, following more than five years of blockage by the PP. Yet the leftist administration has managed to fulfil a long-standing demand of the judiciary. The creation of five hundred new judicial posts this year will dramatically reduce Spain’s deficit of judges compared with other countries in our region and bring the Spanish figure to the European average.
The Ministry of the Presidency and Justice acts in coordination with the CGPJ, which, in the last Plenum of the past Wednesday, requested that the deployment of new postings be phased to allow adequate coverage. On January 1, the posts for the main collegiate bodies (Supreme Court, National Court and provincial and Superior Courts) will be allocated. Six months later, those of the trial courts in the major capitals. The process will be completed, according to the plan designed by the Council, on November 1, 2027, with all posts created, filled and in operation.
“The unprecedented expansion of the judicial staff will be 8.5%.”
Although this unprecedented growth of staff has not yet been approved by the Council of Ministers, the Government and the CGPJ have already launched the largest recruitment drive in history to select new judges and magistrates who will fill the lower-ranking vacancies that will arise as transfer competitions are completed as new destinations are deployed. 375 of the future 500 judges will enter the judiciary through the traditional opposition, which will be held in October. The rest will be filled by a competition-opposition for legally trained professionals with more than ten years of experience (the traditional fourth turn) and will enter the career already with the rank of magistrate. The unprecedented expansion of the workforce will be 8.5%.
In addition to the five hundred new judges and magistrates, through the October competitions there will also be access to 200 new prosecutors —the subjects of the exam are the same as those for judges—. The increase in personnel for the Public Prosecutor’s Office will also be record-breaking and will entail, in one go, a 7.1% growth. The Government plans for 2027 a similar process with the creation of 500 more posts (a thousand in two years) and another similar process of co-optation through competitions and the fourth turn if the legislature endures until then.
The EU Justice Indicators 2026, freshly published by the European Commission, place Spain again at the tail end in the number of judges per 100,000 inhabitants. Among the Twenty-Seven, our country ranks 24th, just above Malta, Denmark and Ireland. However, our country sits in the same range as several of the nations with which we are usually compared, such as France, Italy, Belgium or the Netherlands, though far from Germany or Austria, which double our figure of judges relative to the total population.
If we consider data on public investment relative to GDP, we rise to ninth place, and the same holds for the metrics related to digitalization, where Spain is also at the forefront. The Government and the CGPJ expect that the large staffing increase underway will improve data on the time required to resolve matters and, in general, the chronic backlog of cases, in which Spanish indicators have been poor year after year.
This historic measure has also occurred in an environment of total conflict from the major judicial associations (predominantly right-leaning) with the Government. The conservative groups (not only those of judges but also prosecutors) organized two days of strikes in July 2025 (illegal, perhaps) against reforms undertaken by the Government, including the attempt to democratize access to the career by creating a public center of applicants or introducing a practical test and broadening scholarships for applicants with fewer resources. The approval of the amnesty law to normalize the situation in Catalonia after the traumatic independence process also intensified the conflict with the judiciary.
The president of the CGPJ, Isabel Perelló, dismissed the Government’s increase in judges immediately after Justice announced it, publicly asserting that it “does not address or solve the underlying problem.” Her reaction was surprising, given that the distribution of new posts matched the concrete needs previously indicated in a report by the council itself. A month later, the 20 board members, conservatives and progressives, repudiated Perelló and highly valued the measure in the council’s required report. The document deemed the new posts “essential.”
The Ministry and the Council also clashed over the system to be used to fill the new vacancies. Félix Bolaños was initially in favor of having the occupants selected through the so-called fourth turn for lawyers with at least ten years of experience, while the CGPJ insisted on resorting to the opposition. In the end, both bodies reached an agreement that 325 of the vacancies would go to opponents and the remaining 125 to lawyers.
“The Government’s judicial reform has put the judges on a war footing, who, after years of demanding it, now claim that it has generated chaos.”
The Government maintains that the measure has only been possible thanks to the entry into force, in January 2025, of the only substantial judicial reform it has managed to push through, the Law on the Efficiency of the Public Justice Service. That rule did away with traditional single-judge courts to group them in instance courts whose members are assisted by a common judicial office. The reform has put the judges on a war footing, who, after years of demanding it, now claim that it has generated chaos.
In the Presidency and Justice departments they concede that, as with all major changes, a period of adaptation is required, but they insist that, one year after the law’s approval, there have been no suspensions or delays and, according to their data, the backlog of matters—though, admittedly, still present—begins to ease. In the face of criticisms from conservative associations, which claim that the new law and the 500 new posts have not been accompanied by the necessary investment to implement them, the Bolaños department emphasizes that, in this legislature alone, justice spending has risen to 1,124 million euros. And European Commission data backs up that assertion.
But above all, they argue that without that reform, the hoped-for increase in judges would not have been possible. With the old unicameral courts, creating a new post required setting up the entire court with its materials and personnel. Now it is enough to create one more post in the trial court that needs it. Before the efficiency law, creating a new post cost around 500,000 euros. Now, thanks to transforming the courts into collegiate bodies, they are shared administrative services for all members; the cost of each new post has fallen to 100,000 euros, according to ministry sources.
The Ministry and the Council again clashed over the system for filling the new vacancies. Félix Bolaños was initially in favor of having the occupants chosen through the so-called fourth turn for lawyers with at least ten years of experience, while the CGPJ insisted on resorting to the opposition. In the end, both bodies reached an agreement that 325 of the vacancies would go to opponents and the remaining 125 to lawyers.
“The efficiency law and the historic expansion of staff that this measure has made viable will stand as what the government of Pedro Sánchez leaves to a judiciary that has given him not a moment’s respite.”
The extraordinary recruitment of new members into the judiciary will especially affect the Judicial School, which, as a body dependent on the Council, will have to double its efforts to train these individuals. The judiciary’s governing body has decided to overlap the two stages of practical training that students undergo—supervised internships and duties substituting for other colleagues—to accelerate their full integration into public service. The CGPJ has also asked the Government to reform the law to eliminate the substitution phase, but the ministry, for the moment, rejects it.
The progressive erosion of the Executive’s support in Parliament suggests that the rest of the judicial reforms initiated by the Government may never see the light. Almost certainly, the new Criminal Procedure Law that would entrust the investigation of crimes to prosecutors will not see the light. Nor the reform of the Organic Statute of the Public Prosecutor’s Office to endow it with sufficient independence to assume that role. Nor the new system of access to the judiciary and to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, more open to economically disadvantaged sectors. The Law on Efficiency and the historic expansion of staff that this measure has made viable will remain as what the government of Pedro Sánchez leaves to a judiciary that, in the eight years it has held power, has given it not a moment’s respite.
