The Plenary Session of the Social Chamber of the High Court has published a ruling that represents a setback for numerous temporary workers in Spain. The decision sets a legal precedent regarding the possibility for interim employees to acquire permanent status without having previously passed a selective process.
The High Court argues that granting automatic permanent status to those who have not passed an entrance examination would directly violate the Spanish Constitution and the Basic Statute of Public Employees (EBEP). According to the chamber, allowing this “shortcut” would prevent equal access to public employment for other citizens, reinforcing the need for transparent selection processes.
“"It will not be possible to acquire the status of a permanent worker directly if a selective process under the principles of equality, merit, and capacity has not been previously passed."
However, the ruling introduces a crucial nuance: it does consider legal the conversion to permanent workers for those interim employees who, at some point, passed a selective test for permanent staff but did not obtain a position due to lack of vacancies. In these specific cases, if the worker continued to provide services under fixed-term contracts and an abuse of temporality is confirmed, conversion to permanent status is deemed permissible.
For the majority of interim workers in a situation of legal fraud who have never passed a selective process, the path leads to economic compensation. The Supreme Court establishes that measures to prevent and remedy abuse will include the payment of economic compensation, calculated according to criteria set by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and the referral of actions to the Labor and Social Security Inspectorate to initiate sanctioning proceedings against administrations that have abused temporality.
This doctrine will compel various administrations, including those in the Canary Islands, to review their stabilization processes. The ruling emphasizes that the abuse of temporality is an irregularity that must be punished, but permanent status cannot be the default “punishment” if it conflicts with the right of all citizens to compete for a public position.
