The Supreme rejects making interim staff permanent solely for the abuse of temporality and requires passing a competitive examination

BarcelonaThe Supreme Court has issued a ruling establishing that for an interim employee to become a permanent civil servant, it is not enough for there to be an excess of temporality in their job. Instead, they must pass a selection test to access a permanent position; in other words, they must pass a competitive examination.

fixed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU)set by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

In this way, the Supreme Court understands that an interim contract in the administration must be converted into a permanent employment relationship only when a person has participated in a selection test for the hiring of permanent staff and has passed it, but has not obtained a position because the number of applicants who have demonstrated their suitability is higher than the number of positions offered, if they subsequently sign fixed-term contracts and an abuse of temporality occurs.

The High Court has issued its decision in accordance with the CJEU ruling of April 14, 2026, on the so-called Obadal case, in which the employment relationship of a woman who had passed a selection process and subsequently suffered from abuse of temporality was declared permanent.

This Supreme Court ruling puts an end to the aspirations of thousands of workers hired temporarily for years by public administrations, who hoped that their employment relationship would be declared permanent without having to undergo a prior selection test. The Supreme Court thus sets a criterion, and only if they have passed a selection process and subsequently suffered from abuse of temporality will they be declared permanent workers.

Warnings from Europe

The European justice warned Spain in June 2021 that its regulations did not include any measures aimed at preventing and, where appropriate, sanctioning the abusive use of fixed-term contracts in public administrations. The European judges then pointed out that the transition to a permanent contract could be an "appropriate" measure to sanction the abusive use of fixed-term contracts in the public sector.

In this way, European justice responded to the questions raised by the High Court of Justice of Madrid regarding the case of a female worker who had a series of fixed-term contracts at the Madrid Institute for Agrarian and Food Research and Development (IMIDRA) from 2003 to 2016. That year, her position was awarded to a permanent worker.

The female worker challenged her dismissal before labor court number 40 of Madrid, which upheld her claim and ordered IMIDRA to pay her compensation. IMIDRA appealed against this sentence before the High Court of Justice of Madrid, which raised a series of doubts to the CJEU.

In this ruling of June 2021, the Luxembourg court declared that the European directive on fixed-term work opposes national legislation that has been interpreted in a way that allows the renewal of temporary contracts "without indicating the precise end date of these processes." Following this decision by the CJEU, the Supreme Court rectified its own doctrine regarding the duration of interim contracts for vacancies in the public sector, establishing that, in application of the legal and regulatory provisions on interim contracts, their maximum duration will be the time it takes for selection processes to fill the vacancy in accordance with the provisions of specific legal or conventional regulations.

Three years of interim employment

In the absence of specific regulatory provisions, the Supreme Court determined that, as a general rule, a duration exceeding three years for a temporary contract should be considered "unjustifiably long," which would result in the temporary worker becoming a permanent non-fixed employee.

The Supreme Court's decision this Tuesday comes after the ECJ issued a new ruling on April 14th, insisting that the measures in place in Spain to address the use of successive temporary contracts in the public sector do not comply with European Union law. The European court was responding to a preliminary ruling requested by the Supreme Court regarding whether the Spanish system for correcting these abuses – based, among other measures, on the figure of the permanent non-fixed employee, compensation, or selection processes – meets the requirements of European regulations.

Following this decision, the Spanish government considered that European law does not oblige Spain to make public sector temporary contracts permanent.