Justice Rules The Dismissal Of Temporary Employees Due To The Conversion Of Their Positions Into Civil Service Posts Is Unfair

When a public administration fills a position previously occupied by a temporary employee with a career civil servant, can that position be considered to have been lawfully filled, or does this in fact amount to a dismissal? Madrid Labour Court No. 36 addressed this question in a judgment issued on 3 July 2026 in a case led by Javier Ramón, partner in the Public, Administrative and Regulatory Law department at Toda & Nel-lo. The court held that the conversion of the position into a civil service post does not amount to its lawful filling and therefore constitutes an unfair dismissal.

The ruling orders the Department of Family, Youth and Social Affairs of the Community of Madrid to choose, within five days, between reinstating the employee with payment of back wages or paying compensation for unfair dismissal. In addition, the court awarded further compensation for moral damages arising from the fraudulent use of temporary employment contracts.

Why does the conversion of the position into a civil service post constitute an unfair dismissal? 

The employee had been providing services to the public administration since November 2001, initially as a replacement worker and, from July 2003 onwards, under a fixed-term contract as an administrative assistant pending the lawful filling of the vacant position. In July 2025, she was notified of the termination of her employment relationship following the allocation of that same position—already converted into a civil service post—to a person appointed as a career civil servant through a temporary employment stabilisation process.

The court found that the maximum duration of the temporary employment arrangement had been clearly exceeded and that the position had not been filled through the legally established labour recruitment procedure. Instead, the position had changed its legal nature. Referring to judgments of both the Spanish Supreme Court and the High Court of Justice of Madrid, the ruling concludes that this situation is equivalent to a dismissal and therefore declares it unfair.

Additional compensation for 19 years of abuse of temporary employment

Applying the doctrine established by the Fourth Chamber of the Spanish Supreme Court in Judgment No. 475/2026 of 11 May—issued following the Court of Justice of the European Union’s judgment of 14 April 2026 (the Obadal case)—the Labour Court recognised that termination compensation alone does not fully redress the harm caused by years of employment insecurity. In this case, the employee had worked under fraudulent temporary employment arrangements for 19 of the 22 years of her employment relationship, a period the court described as “completely extraordinary”. As a result, the court awarded moral damages at the upper end of the range provided for in Article 40.1.c bis of the LISOS (Law on Infringements and Penalties in the Social Order).

According to Javier Ramón Sierra, partner in Public, Administrative and Regulatory Law at Toda & Nel-lo: “The judgment confirms that the conversion of a labour position into a civil service post—and its subsequent allocation through a stabilisation process—does not amount to the lawful filling of the labour vacancy, but rather constitutes an unfair dismissal with all the corresponding compensation consequences. This is a highly significant precedent for all permanent non-fixed employees whose positions have been subject to civil-service conversion processes.”.

Further information:

• El Economista | EcoLey – Courts are now awarding damages to temporary public employees and are ruling dismissals unfair when labour positions are assigned to civil servants.