The Supreme Court has annulled the royal decree by which, in April 2023, the traffic powers that the Civil Guard had until then were transferred to the Community of Navarra.
The Contentious-Administrative Chamber has admitted the appeal presented by the Civil Guard Justice Association (JUCIL) considering that this transfer could not be made by a royal decree, since neither the Organic Law of Reintegration and Improvement of the Foral Regime of Navarra ( Lorafna) nor historical law recognize traffic powers for the community.
The magistrates conclude that these powers may be assumed by Navarra, "but either by reforming the Lorafna, or by means of an organic law."
The transfer of exclusive powers over traffic and road safety, which the Basque Country and Catalonia enjoy, was a historic demand of Navarra that has been maintained by presidents of all the parties that have passed through the regional Government.
The Executive of José María Aznar (PP) committed to the transfer in 2000 with the then Navarrese president, Miguel Sanz, of UPN, but the agreement did not come to fruition.
UPN insisted on its request, without success, in the following years and, finally, in October 2018, already with Pedro Sánchez in La Moncloa, the central government and the then Navarrese president, Uxue Barkos (Geroa Bai), closed an agreement for the transfer of these powers starting in May 2019. The deadline was missed, but the commitment was maintained and, in April 2023, the Government approved a royal decree with the conditions of the transfer, which began to take effect in July.
The court does not reject that the regional community can exclusively assume traffic powers, but maintains that this transfer cannot be made by royal decree because it is not provided for in the Lorafna (the basic institutional norm of the Community of Navarra, the equivalent of the Statutes of autonomy in other communities).
The magistrates explain that, although this rule does not contemplate this transfer, this could be done by an agreement between the central and provincial governments if the traffic powers were part of the historical law of the community, for which it is necessary to analyze what powers in this matter of traffic and road safety Navarra had before the Lorafna was enacted.
And the “regulatory reality after and before” the Lorafna, the ruling highlights, is that the jurisdiction has always been that of the Civil Guard and the Foral Police exercised an “auxiliary, subordinate, collaborative or cooperation” function.
"The reality is that from the state of jurisdiction existing at the time of enactment of the Lorafna, it does not follow that the Foral Community has a jurisdiction that includes the functions that, in its place, are exercised by the Civil Guard (...), but rather those that it exercises concurrently, But in this concurrence, Navarra exercises a competence specified in functions of collaboration or cooperation with the Civil Guard and it is those that the Civil Guard exercises that seek to be transferred without Navarra holding a jurisdictional title, neither with the Lorafna nor before being enacted," warns the Supreme Court.
The ruling rejects the allegation that the regional community had presented of lack of legitimacy of the JUCIL association to present the appeal against the transfer of powers.
To oppose this argument, the Supreme Court uses the document itself presented by the regional government.
“Paradoxically, the best defense of the active legitimation of JUCIL is made by the Foral Community of Navarra itself.
To deny it, he maintains that the transfer does not affect the Civil Guard and then, he alleges that the professional, personal and family interests of the civil guards affected by the transfer are satisfied.
To do this, it tells us that they will be able to change their functions or continue performing them 'in other geographical destinations', that is, leaving Navarra or, in short, they will be able to join the Foral Police of Navarra."
According to the court, "it is obvious that any of these alternatives affects, at least, the professional interests of the civil guards and does so to the point of foreseeing their integration into another police force."
The president of the Government of Navarra, the socialist María Chivite, has appeared before the media to clarify that they are "going to act so that this competition is in Navarra."
Chivite has insisted that the Supreme Court does not question whether the transfer of Traffic and Road Safety to Navarra can be carried out, but rather has annulled the procedure used for it.
She has not specified how they will do it and has asked for time to analyze the sentence and its consequences in depth.
The Royal Decree Option
Regarding why they opted for a Royal Transfer Decree, the provincial president has detailed that they were based on the previous jurisprudence of the Supreme Court itself: “Both the report of the Legal Department of the Government of Navarra and the report of the lawyers of the Parliament of Navarra concluded that the route of the Royal Decree was the correct one to provide legal support to the transfer mechanism.”
That is, the Supreme Court's ruling, Chivite understands, does not match its own previous jurisprudence.
The transfer became effective on July 1, 2023 and his assumption was being carried out progressively.
Until this moment, Navarra had acquired, for example, the powers to authorize medical centers for examinations or to recover points, to register vehicles, teachers and inspections of driving schools;
for the development of educational and training informative campaigns or for the collection of fees for all procedures related to Traffic.
They still do not know what will happen with these specific issues, if their management is reversed or if the Regional Community will continue to control them until the transfer is clarified.
What they have made clear is that the Supreme Court ruling does not affect previous legal situations for the citizen.
That is, it will not affect, for example, those who have recovered their license points during this time or have registered their vehicle in the system.
At this time, the Foral Police and the Civil Guard continued to share control and surveillance of the Navarrese roads.
Chivite has criticized that the Supreme Court has not even directly communicated the resolution to them: “We are surprised that we learned about this issue from the press, from the media, before the court itself communicated the sentence to us.
Which is curious, let's leave it there."
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