The local government denounces the court cuts the Ministry plans to implement in Benidorm and demands that it backtrack

The local government of Benidorm City Council has denounced the new cuts that the central government plans to implement at the Benidorm Palace of Justice, abolishing an Examining Magistrate's Court and converting it into a Violence Against Women Division instead of creating a new one without reducing the existing ones. Therefore, spokespersons Lourdes Caselles and Mónica Gómez have presented a motion to the plenary session to "demand that the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice, and Parliamentary Relations reverse the initiative to abolish an Examining Magistrate's Court in Benidorm and convert it into a Violence Against Women Division and strengthen this division by appointing a new judge for Benidorm, without any abolition of any positions."

The proposal stems from concerns expressed by representatives of the judicial sector in Benidorm after learning of the plans of Pedro Sánchez's government to implement the recently approved Organic Law 1/2025, of January 2, on measures for the efficiency of the Public Justice Service. As a result, it has been proposed to abolish one of Benidorm's four Investigative Courts and convert it into another Court for Violence against Women. This decision "has generated absolute rejection from the Judiciary, the Clerks of the Court of Justice, the Prosecutor's Office, and various groups of legal practitioners, who warn of the collapse that the elimination of an Investigative Court in a city like Benidorm would entail," notes spokesperson Lourdes Caselles.

The measure would be implemented next October, when the new Sections responsible for hearing cases of violence against women will have to assume the investigation of all sexual crimes, thus seeing their workload significantly increased without receiving reinforcements. The councilor emphasized that "without a doubt, we are completely in favor of strengthening the Courts for Violence against Women, but this reinforcement cannot come at the expense of cutting back on other jurisdictional bodies, as they intend to do in our city, despite the opposition and complaints from all the groups involved."

The spokesperson indicated that, "apparently, the reason for eliminating an Examining Magistrate's Court and converting it into a Court for Violence against Women is related to the 'workload' data for the Examining Magistrates' Courts as a whole. These data are not shared by the Judges and the Benidorm Local Justices (LAJ), as they do not take into account the reality of the work carried out by the city's Courts or the specific circumstances of this judicial district."

In this regard, she noted that Benidorm is a tourist city with a registered population of 74,573 inhabitants and that, according to INE data, it welcomed 2,829,531 travellers in 2024, 2.9% more than the previous year, and recorded 15,460,265 overnight stays, 4.6% more than in 2023. Therefore, the workload in Benidorm's courts has continued to increase in recent years. "Given this, the Spanish Government's Ministry of Justice, instead of strengthening the justice system in our city by creating new courts, in this specific case a new Court for Violence against Women, and simultaneously strengthening the Courts of First Instance, has decided to implement cuts, once again, in an essential public service, eliminating a Court of First Instance," Caselles remarked.

The proposal to be debated in plenary session recalls that in 2022, with the implementation of Royal Decree 954/2022, of November 15, issued by the Ministry of Justice, "the workload of the Benidorm Courts was already significantly increased, with the consolidation of the judicial districts of Benidorm and Villajoyosa, with the Benidorm Court of Violence against Women No. 1 assuming responsibility for the crimes that until then fell under the jurisdiction of said judicial district."

The councillor stated that, according to both the investigating judges and the lawyers of the Benidorm Court of Justice, "the elimination of an investigating court would be unfeasible, as only three courts can't assume what has been done up to now by four. All of this translates, as the Judiciary has informed us, into direct harm to the citizen seeking justice and to the victim of the crime, who will experience slower and, consequently, delayed justice."

“For all the above reasons, and according to what the investigating judges and judicial officers of the Benidorm Court of Justice also consider, what is necessary,” Lourdes Caselles continued, “would be the creation of a new Court for Violence against Women in the Benidorm judicial district, and not the transformation, and consequently the abolition, of one of the four existing investigating courts.” The councilor expressed her confidence that “all groups within the municipal government will join this initiative, since the decision of Pedro Sánchez's government will mean a further reduction in public services and another setback for our citizens, demonstrating once again that those who govern us in Madrid care very little about Benidorm.”