Juan Carlos Campo, Minister of Justice: "The Attorney General's Office has a lot of potential and very good times are coming for the profession."

 

Madrid, October 29, 2020. The Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, inaugurated today, at the headquarters of the General Council of Attorneys of Spain, in the presence of the President of the General Council of Attorneys of Spain, Juan Carlos Estévez and the from the Vice of the CGPE and Dean of A Coruña, Javier Sánchez García, the conferences dedicated to analyzing the future of the attorney profession, as well as the challenges that its professionals face when adapting to European regulations.

 

The head of Justice, insisted that the Procuratorate has a lot of potential and undoubtedly all legal operators have to take advantage of it. And that framework we are all working very intensively to list as soon as possible the necessary organizational, technological and regulatory reforms so that the whole process is more agile and effective and therefore we need to have everyone, and obviously with the Procuratorate, to make it exit.

Campo has highlighted the efforts of the Ministry of Justice to accommodate Spanish legislation to the requirements of European law with regard to access and the conditions for exercising the professions of lawyer and solicitor, and, especially, the interaction between the two. The minister has indicated that a comprehensive and coherent response has been given to the objections that the European Commission formulated regarding the current model of the exercise of the prosecution in Spain, always defending at all costs the separation of functions between prosecution and the legal profession, which has finally managed to modify the European requirements and close the infringement file against Spain. The sole, but not simultaneous, access to the exercise of the professions of lawyer and attorney; the possibility of forming multidisciplinary professional societies; and the modification of a tariff regime more compatible with free competition and consumer rights are the three most important measures in the Draft Law on Access to the Legal Profession and the Attorney General, explained Campo.

 

Juan Carlos Estévez: Vision of the Future.

 

For his part, the president of the CGPE, Juan Carlos Estévez, was in charge of transmitting the Council's “Vision of the Future” on the major issues that concern the Attorney General's Office and the Administration of Justice in General. He began by recalling that the UE Pilot is undoubtedly a very topical issue and number one in our institutional priorities. It encompasses three fundamental chapters, such as: the Access Law, the Law of Professional Companies and the Royal Decree on Tariffs. This matter comes from the EU Pilot, the informal dialogue mechanism between the Commission and Spain on possible non-compliance with Community legislation. As Minister Rafael Catalá, an exit for the profession was negotiated, but as the agreements were never fulfilled due to circumstances, such as the motion of no confidence in Rajoy, elections and the change of government. Europe had gotten tired of waiting and was thinking of going to the Luxembourg Court. However, the current Minister of Justice has managed to stop the issue and renegotiate it to leave things as they were initially.

And as for the situation of the Prosecutor's profession before Europe, the head of state specified that the activity reserve is preserved, as long as reforms are made in the Access Law, in the Law on Professional Societies and in the regulations on Tariffs. These reforms have already been finalized through a bill that a few days ago that has landed in the Congress of Deputies and, therefore, is being processed. We do not like this bill in principle, but we have no choice but to accept it, because it is the result of the pact with Brussels in exchange for maintaining the activity reserve. In the process of amendments we want to improve the text, but within the parameters of the Government's agreement with Brussels.