SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 17 December (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Contentious-Administrative Court number 3 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife has acknowledged the status of permanent statutory workforce for an internist who served 18 years at the Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria University Hospital in Santa Cruz de Tenerife under temporary contracts, despite having successfully passed the examination for Area Specialist Physician (FEA).
The judicial authority identifies in this instance “a genuine circumstance of abuse in recruitment and thus a breach of legal norms throughout the entire series of appointments, without interruption, from 21 December 2006 to the present, spanning nearly 18 years”.
The judgement asserts that, given the absence of any penalising rule for this abuse within the domestic framework, “it is fitting, in line with the latest jurisprudence from the CJEU and considering the plaintiff has completed a selection process adhering to the principles of transparency, equality, merit and capability, to grant the statutory status in the defendant administration”.
The ruling, as reported by the TSJC in a statement, enumerates the ten temporary contracts the Canarian Health Service had with the physician from December 2006 until the ruling was published on 19 November.
It notes that all these contracts were formalised to fulfil roles as Area Specialist Physician (FEA) within the Internal Medicine Service of the HUNSC, and references a report prepared by the head of the service concerning the individual in question, which states that all statutory personnel, whether permanent, interim or temporary, “carry out identical functions” within the service, without engaging in extraordinary, exceptional, or temporary tasks.
The judicial authority observes that the administration responded to the complaint by arguing that the law permitted temporary hiring due to reasons of urgency, necessity, temporality or extraordinary situations without constituting abuse, and counters that “at the initial stage of the appointment this might have been justifiable, yet no circumstance of temporality can be attributed to sustaining the position for 18 years.”
The judgement conveys that based on the evidence presented by the plaintiff, “there is unequivocal evidence of abuse and legal malpractice.”
The judgement may be appealed in the Contentious-Administrative Chamber.
