A Guatemalan jurist is suing Socialist Spain’s Equality Ministry for over 375,000 euros on allegations it illegally appropriated her work for the nation’s abortion law reforms, the newspaper El País reported on Wednesday.
El País explained that in 2021, the Equality Ministry reached out to jurist Adilia de las Mercedes to commission a “blueprint” for the abortion law reforms that were ultimately passed by the Spanish socialists in 2023. De las Mercedes reportedly specializes in “human rights, sexual and reproductive health, and international law,” and has served as an expert for organizations such as the United Nations and governments in Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
According to the lawsuit’s 162-page long documentation reviewed by the newspaper, the jurist alleges that the Ministry urgently reached out to her for the commission and was offered 5,000 euro in payment for her services.
De las Mercedes stated that she accepted to work on the commission, but claimed that, soon after, the Ministry’s demands “made her realize that what they were asking for was not an outline, but the draft of the regulation,” so she requested that the compensation be “proportionally higher and fairer.” She further claims that she was never actually paid for her services and that she was “forbidden” for saying that she was the author because the “right wing” would allegedly attack the Ministry over it due over her foreign-born status.
In the lawsuit, De las Mercedes is reportedly requesting that the contracts she signed for the outline’s commissions are deemed null and void on grounds that the Equality Ministry “illegally” appropriated her work. She is also accusing the Ministry of rendering her work “invisible,” of committing “institutional violence” against her.
Furthermore, de las Mercedes is claiming that all of the acts allegedly committed against her ‘”can only be characterized as discrimination on the basis of national origin by the Administration,” as she is a Guatemalan-Spanish dual national born in Guatemala.
El País detailed that de las Mercedes is seeking a total of 376,544.59 euros in damages — of which 97,860, are “fair compensation” for the commission work, and 278,684.59 for “moral, psychological, and physical damages” resulting from the “discriminatory treatment” that allegedly occurred through 2023.
The complaint specifically names five senior officials from the Equality Ministry, all of whom have reportedly rejected the allegations.
In the case of Spanish EU Parliament member Irene Montero, who served as Equality Ministry at the time of the abortion law reforms, El País explained that although her name appears through the lawsuit, the complaint clarifies that there was never a “direct connection,” noting that “if the minister was unaware of the series of discriminatory actions, she failed to fulfill the duties of her office,” and “if she was aware and did not prevent the discrimination, her responsibility is even greater.”
Sources close to Montero did not respond to El País as to whether Montero was aware of the lawyer’s situation, but they reportedly noted that she always had “full confidence in her team.”
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