The Department of Justice, Local Administration, and Public Function will celebrate the III Conference ‘Women who inspire us in the Defense of Equality’ in Malaga on February 25th, as part of the activities for International Women’s Day. The choice of Malaga as the venue is due to being the only province in Andalusia with a female president of the Court of Appeals and deans of judges, lawyers, and the Faculty of Law. They are all legal professionals who have broken glass ceilings, with the dean of the Bar Association being the first woman to hold such a position not only in Malaga but in all of Andalusia.
The Minister of Justice, José Antonio Nieto, recently met with Flor Carrasco and the entire board of the Bar Association for the first time after her recent election. Carrasco replaces Salvador González after his appointment as the president of the Spanish Bar Association. The Minister remarked that she is «making history» as the first female dean of a bar association in Andalusia, highlighting the significant impact of her educational and analytical activities, including organizing one of the most important legal congresses in Spain and Europe.
Both will inaugurate the conference, along with the regional government delegate in Malaga, Patricia Navarro, continuing the tradition from the previous editions held in Granada and Cordoba. Nieto emphasized that choosing the location for this third edition was «very easy» because there is no other province where a woman leads the Provincial Court, the Judges’ Deanship, the Bar Association, and the Faculty of Law.
The panel will include judges Lourdes García and Cristina Hurtado de Mendoza, Carrasco herself, and Isabel González, a professor of Administrative Law at the University of Malaga. They will discuss current challenges in the application and development of regulations on conciliation, the necessary measures to deepen co-responsibility, and the role of justice in ensuring the fundamental right to equal opportunities, as well as the essential commitment of social and institutional actors.
The roundtable will be moderated by the General Secretary of Judicial Services of the Department, Rosalía Espinosa, followed by the closing remarks by the Deputy Minister of Justice, Ana Corredera.
The challenge of the Efficiency Law
The Minister also underscored the crucial role of legal professionals in a pivotal year where «we must implement a complex law that will transform the justice system throughout Spain, the Efficiency Law, which will be a significant leap forward and can only succeed if all legal operators work together to enhance citizen service.»
«We need to gather opinions and receive contributions from everyone,» he emphasized, noting that the Department has already held two participatory conferences in Seville and Granada to gather input from all legal operators for the draft Strategic Justice Plan, focusing on judicial infrastructure, digitalization, staff reorganization, service humanization, and system sustainability.
Nieto lamented the deficit in creating judicial bodies, under the Ministry of Justice, which in recent years has only established 12 courts in the province and 5 magistrate positions, while the Andalusian High Court deems 42 courts and 14 magistrates necessary due to population growth and the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking on the coast.
The dean of the Bar Association in Malaga expressed gratitude for the government’s support on issues such as compensations for legal aid professionals, increased last year after being frozen for 14 years, and ongoing dialogue for improvements. She highlighted the significant challenge of introducing Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) methods in the new Efficiency Law to alleviate the overwhelming litigation burden on courts and ensure agreements originate from citizens due to limited court resources.
Andalusia has already implemented a Mediation Strategy to promote this alternative conflict resolution method. It is the first region to include it in the Legal Aid system, establishing a public and free Penal Mediation Service (SEMPA) and planning to create another for Civil and Commercial Mediation this year.
