A Vitoria Court has ordered the City Council of the Basque capital to provisionally admit the young Aimar, 21 years old and with , as an applicant for a position as a career civil servant for people with mental deficiencies. The council, which excluded him in a job offer, must correct his exams and “be aware of their results.” This judicial decision reinforces the position of Aimar and his family, which they decided to take to court.
Aimar’s case could create a precedent for people like him who aspire to run in a public office as a civil servant. He applied for one of the 14 places reserved for people with intellectual disabilities in the selective process called by this council to enter as a career civil servant, working as a service assistant. The Department of Public Function excluded him from the list of those admitted because, in the first instance, he did not justify having a recognized intellectual disability equal to or greater than 33%, as established in the bases of the opposition. But during the process he provided conclusive official documentation on his disability situation, which reaches 49%, but without specifying whether it is intellectual, mental, physical or sensory. The City Council, as a precaution, let him take the exams, but did not accept him as admitted. A court in Vitoria ruled last October that the decision to exclude Aimar “is not in accordance with the law” and forces the City Council to reinstate him.
The Vitoria town council decided to appeal the ruling before the Superior Court of Justice of the Basque Country (TSJPV), which has not yet made a decision on the matter. Before knowing the result of this appeal, the same Vitoria court that ruled in favor of Aimar has now ordered that the sentence be provisionally executed with immediate effect, meaning Aimar must be readmitted and his exams corrected.
The judge of the Contentious-Administrative Court number 1 of Vitoria has agreed, in an order dated December 9, “to proceed with the provisional execution of the sentence” against the Vitoria town hall. And it orders “provisionally admitting to the selective for entry as a career civil servant for , as a service assistant”, a position that Aimar opted for after presenting the credentials issued to him by the Bizkaia Provincial Council.
Adolfo Godoy, the lawyer who has handled Amar’s case on his behalf and that of his family, highlights the judge’s latest decision. “We need brave city councils that do not keep the minimum reservation of places for people with disabilities; but, adapting to reality and a greater number of diagnoses, increase the percentage of reserved places to at least 20%.”
The Vitoria City Council assures this newspaper “there is no decision made” regarding the order that requires the execution of the sentence against him. The council can challenge the judicial order before the same court. The judge maintains in her brief that Aimar “alleged and proved in a notable and sufficient manner that his disability presented impairment of mental functions”, with a certificate from the Bizkaia Provincial Council that recognized him as “a disability of 49%”, a degree higher than the 33% required by the rules of the public tender.
Removing Aimar from the tests to access the public position as a civil servant and not evaluating his exams, according to the judge, would mean “not immediately knowing if he has passed the selective tests or if he has not passed them.” The court goes further and evaluates the “irreparable harm” that could be caused to the young person if the exam is not corrected: “If the tests have not been passed, the provisional execution [de la sentencia] “can bring notable advantages, since the issue would be perfectly clarified” and, consequently, the appeal filed by the Vitoria City Council before the TSJPV would lose its purpose.
But if he has passed the tests, the judge adds, “only if, on his own merits, he is among the first 14 applicants, would the sentence have positive effects on the appellant.” “It is true that it would affect third participants in the selection process, since at least one of the applicants would be excluded from the list of participants who have passed the selection process with a place. It would be a negative effect, but not derived from the provisional execution but from the inferior merit and capacity that that applicant would have demonstrated,” the judge reasons. And he adds: “The City Council cannot experience any harm.”
At the expense of the city council’s decision to appeal the execution of the sentence, the judge points out that “if the appellant had not won the position”, whether a higher judicial instance finally agrees with him or not, “the appointment that was eventually produced would be annulled.” ex post“The eventual damage to their mental and emotional health, given the cognitive rigidity of people with autism spectrum disorder, would derive not from the sentence and its provisional execution, but from the personal management of news of that nature.”
