The Minister of Interior, Public Function and Justice of the Government of Navarra, Inma Jurío, has defended that the regional Administration is situated "within relatively adequate limits of temporality". She has underlined, however, that it is necessary to analyze "contract by contract" of the administrative contracted personnel to check if, in accordance with the criteria established by the Tribunal Supremo, an abuse in the use of temporality has occurred or not.
In the plenary session of the Parlamento de Navarra, and in response to a question formulated by Contigo-Zurekin, Jurío has recalled that the Tribunal Supremo has issued a judgment of unification of doctrine based on the jurisprudence of the Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea. Said resolution establishes that "not all temporary hiring of labor personnel automatically determines that the same be declared as permanent labor personnel within Public Administrations" by the mere fact of having chained several contracts.
In this way, she has specified that, for employees hired for years by the Administration to be considered permanent, "it is necessary that this hiring be declared to occur in fraud of law" and that, previously, they have passed an opposition "that determines that they have the necessary requirements" and even so have not obtained a position.
Based on this new doctrine, the minister has pointed out that "several doubts remain", since the TJUE refers to an "abnormally long" hiring, an "undetermined legal criterion that we will have to define". She has added that European regulations on this matter "are not directly applicable to España" and that "it is we in España who have to develop our own regulations". In this vein, she has recalled the call for a technical commission of Public Function at the state level in which a group will be constituted that "defines what unusually abusive hiring is" and allows "to be able to apply the criteria".
Inma Jurío has reiterated that "only by chaining temporary contracts does not produce the declaration of their permanence but rather a series of criteria are established for it". From there, she has said, "it will be Spanish legislation and, therefore, also Navarran within the scope that concerns us" that must specify how to develop and apply this regulation.
Regarding the impact of the ruling in Navarra, the minister pointed out that the regional administration does not have "a large number" of labor personnel and that the "largest number" corresponds to administrative contractors. She stressed, however, that "that does not lead to thinking that all administrative contractors are so in fraud of law," so that "each contract would have to be reviewed." She encouraged that "whoever considers they are within their rights should go to court and, from there, establish regulations."
In this context, she highlighted that the Navarrese Executive has been "especially careful since 2021 in establishing the rules to avoid fraudulent contracting, has established measures, compensation, and sanctions to avoid it." For this reason, she considers that "we are within relatively adequate limits of temporality." She added that "it is always desirable that they be reduced" and that the regional government "is on that path of reducing temporality."
On the other hand, the Contigo-Zurekin parliamentarian, Miguel Garrido, warned that various unknowns persist: "if the doctrine that is going to be applied is extensible to administrative personnel, what are the passed tests that would grant access to that permanent character, what is the limit from which what constitutes fraud of law in contracting is established, and how that moral and even material compensation could be determined."
Garrido stated that, beyond the working group that is going to be launched, "those who are going to decide will be the courts." Therefore, he urged all personnel, both labor and administrative, who believe they have suffered "an abuse of contracting" to resort to the judicial route to "claim their rights."