Justices of the Peace will not be able to marry starting today due to an error in the processing of a law.

BarcelonaSalt Justice of the Peace, Francesca Terrón, usually performs about eight weddings a month, but this week alone she's already done six. "We've been performing weddings left and right for the past two weeks," she said in a conversation with ARA the day before the law that will take away their authority to register civil unions comes into effect. An error in the processing of the law of judicial efficiency The law has left justices of the peace without the power to register marriages, and sources from the Ministry of Justice state that they are already "looking for the best way to ensure this authority as soon as possible."

On Monday, Catalonia's 898 justices of the peace received a letter from the Department of Justice reminding them of the law's entry into force and also advising that the ministry is studying legal options to return to them the authority for which they are best known. Since January, the department has also contacted affected couples so they can schedule a civil wedding with a councilor, a mayor, or the civil registry.

When asked about the issue on Wednesday, Justice Minister Ramon Espadaler explained that "the parliamentary procedure left out one of the responsibilities and one of the most rewarding jobs" of the justices of the peace. He added that it was "due to the legislator's involuntary decision," and insisted that "there is a clear and express will on the part of the ministry and all the parliamentary groups that supported the law" to allow this power to be restored.

For now, however, the ministry has not specified how this will be done, nor has it explained what timeline it foresees for justices of the peace to be able to marry again. Terrón, as a precaution, has completed all the marriages he had planned for April, but already anticipates that, if a solution has not been found by the end of the month, he will have to cancel the couples scheduled for May. However, knowledgeable sources indicate that the situation could be reversed before the summer through an amendment to another law.

The amendment did not arrive in time.

The efficiency law has taken years to stop being a project and become a reality, and was even put on hold due to the call for early elections in 2023.The figure of the justices of the peace was at risk of disappearing due to the new municipal justice offices. The final version of the law, far from eliminating justices of the peace, expands their powers, so Terrón sees a "total incongruity in expanding powers and at the same time removing the most well-known one, that of marriage."

The Catalan Association for Justice, of which Terrón is secretary general, contacted parliamentary groups to push for an amendment that would include them among the professionals with the authority to register marriages. However, the amendments were not submitted to Congress in time: knowledgeable sources emphasize that the efficiency law required a complex negotiation, carried out by seven parties, and received dozens of amendments on many different issues. The amendments from the PSC, ERC, and Junts regarding justices of the peace and marriages did not reach the Senate, where the PP majority vetoed the entire law. Finally, the law returned to Congress and was approved without the amendments.

"We wish it hadn't happened."

Terrón recalls how, once the law was passed, the profession asked political groups to correct this error before the law came into effect on April 3: "We explicitly asked for it to be fixed, and one way to do it is by royal decree. It could have been done before April 3, but it hasn't been possible."

"We know there's a desire to fix it, that it will only be temporary. But we would have liked this not to happen," laments Terrón. In his court, they have been able to complete all the marriages scheduled for this month at the cost of "work" preparing the files and performing weddings every day instead of two or three per week, as is usually done in this profession, which is compensated with a nominal salary and which justices of the peace usually combine with another profession. However, what he regrets most is the impact on the couples who were due to get married: "A wedding requires a lot of preparation, families come for the celebration... All of this has been altered."