• Courts Linguistic discrimination in Barcelona: They annul a selective test in the Urban Guard for preventing the applicant from using Spanish

The Contentious Administrative Court number 17 of Barcelona has upheld the appeal filed by the Independent Union of the Local Police (SIP) against the bases for the temporary change of destination of the group of beaches of the Urban Guard of Barcelona in the call for this summer and has canceled the reservation of 25% of places for women stipulated in this regulation.

For this reason, the judge orders the Barcelona City Council, led by the mayor Ada Colau, to "take back everything that has been done and carry out a new assessment of the merits" of the applicants, regardless of whether they are men or women.

In this way, the Consistory must reassign the 80 police positions and 8 corporals of this group, which operates specifically in the summer months to control the city's coastline, and establish criteria based on the capacity of each agent for their incorporation.

SIP, the majority union in the Guardia Urbana, filed a lawsuit considering that this organizational procedure, which established that 25% of the places were for women, violated fundamental rights, as established in the ruling.

In this sense, the resource highlights that the reservation of places cannot be applied in changes of destination, only in calls for access or promotions, as indicated by the legislation.

For this reason, the court points out that "the principle of discrimination is universal and must be applied in all cases in which it occurs" and adds that "it is not understood how the City Council has disassociated itself" from the Local Police Law that " establishes rules to avoid situations of discrimination and that, 'prima face', respond much better to the balance of constitutional principles" on equality between the sexes.

In addition, it highlights that this regulation allows the adoption of measures "in favor of women" that does not "set an automatic percentage", such as the 25% established by the Consistory, which "

Sources from the Barcelona City Council explain to this medium that the sentence "does not affect the level set by the law of 40% access and promotion of women" but rather the internal mobility orders within the body.

The union points out that the initiative to favor the presence of women within the Guàrdia Urbana is a "pending or poorly executed subject" by the municipal administration and the leadership of this body in recent years and that because of this "mistaken management" there are few female agents.

In addition, they remember that since the beginning of March, when they began to talk about the call for the beach unit for this summer, they already warned that the 25% reserve for women was against the regulations since it was a matter of internal mobility, as a change of destination, and not a selection process.

GUBBARCELONA

However, the union regrets that the administration did not respond to it and that even the legal services of the Consistory itself were alerted to this situation.

Finally, the call was made with the reservation of places and SIP filed an appeal considering that the City Council is carrying out "a discriminatory policy that harms a part of the workforce" of the Urban Guard by adopting "measures that favor labor woman generating unequal treatment due to gender contrary to men".

They believed that this decision by the City Council violates numerous Spanish and European regulations and cannot be considered a "legitimate measure of positive action to achieve equal opportunities."

After learning of the judicial decision, the general secretary of SIP Barcelona, ​​Manel García, recalled that months ago the director of labor relations for Human Resources of the Consistory was notified of the violation, just as the legal services did and that despite this alert, the call with reservation of places.

That is why he regretted that from the municipal administration "they are used to imposing their criteria without taking into account the only professional organization of the City Council" such as theirs, as well as the "professional" criteria that come from the Urban Guard Headquarters.

For now, the Consistory has been forced to rectify by court order.

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