The Secretary of State for Justice (SEJUS) is the second-in-command to the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Minister of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

. The Secretary of State is appointed by the

Monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power i ...

at the request of the Justice Minister and after hearing the

Council of Ministers A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/ shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or nati ...

. The SEJUS is responsible for coordinating and collaborating with the justice administration of the

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; organizing, planning, supporting and cooperating with the

Administration of Justice The administration of justice is the process by which the legal system of a government is executed. The presumed goal of such an administration is to provide justice for all those accessing the legal system. The phrase is also commonly used to d ...

and with the Prosecution Ministry; establishing international legal cooperation and relations with international organizations and the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

; promoting

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

; directing and managing those responsibilities regarding

marital status Civil status, or marital status, are the distinct options that describe a person's relationship with a significant other. ''Married'', '' single'', ''divorced'', and ''widowed'' are examples of civil status. ''Civil status'' and ''marital stat ...

and

nationality Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a ''national'', of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the ...

, notaries, public faith, and civil register; as well as those related to the location, recovery, management and sale of objects, goods, instruments and profits from criminal activities. Likewise, it is the responsibility of the Secretary of State to promote and elaborate the regulatory projects on matters within its competence and those entrusted by the head of the department, without prejudice to the attributions corresponding to the Ministry's Under-Secretary and the Technical Secretary-General.

History

The Office of Secretary of State for Justice was created on 13 May 1994, when the ministries of Justice and the Interior were merged. From the Secretary of State depended as its highest department the General Secretariat for Justice and this, in turn, had as its superior body a Directorate-General for the judicial infrastructure. Apart from the General Secretariat, it had other departments as the Directorate-General for Registries and Notaries, the Directorate-General of the State Legal Service (current Solicitor General), the Directorate-General for Conscientious Objection and the Directorate-General for Codification and International Legal Cooperation, as well as a cabinet for religious affairs. As of 1996, the restored Directorate-General for Relations with the Administration of Justice was integrated into it and the cabinet of religious affairs was elevated to the rank of directorate-general. Likewise, the General Secretariat of Justice was abolished and the Judicial Studies Center and the Judicial General Mutuality were assigned to the Secretariat of State for Justice. The structure of the department was not touched again until 2001, when the Directorate-General for the Modernization of the Administration of Justice was created in its midst. Except for certain changes between its directorates-general, its structure was not modified until 2008, in which the General Secretariat for Modernization and Relations with the Administration of Justice (current SGAJ) was created as an intermediate body between the Secretary of State and some of its addresses general. In 2010, it underwent its most relevant modification and is still preserved today. The Solicitor General and the Directorate General of Registries and Notaries were directly attached to the Minister and the Secretary of State assumed the competences over international legal cooperation. In 2015, the Office of Asset Recovery and Management (ORGA) was created and assigned to the Secretary of State. As of 2018, the powers of the ORGA are assumed by the Secretary-General for the Administration of Justice (SGAJ). In 2020, the new justice minister, Juan Carlos Campo, renamed all the Ministry's departments. Despite of the name changing of the Secretariat of State's bodies, the responsibilities were the same, with the exception of those relating religious freedom, that were transferred from the Directorate-General for International Legal Cooperation, Relations with Religions and Human Rights to the

Undersecretariat of the Presidency The Under-Secretary of the Presidency, officially Under-Secretary of the Presidency, Relations with the Cortes and Equality is the most senior civil servant of the Ministry of the Presidency of Spain. The Under-Secretary is responsible for assis ...

, and the legal security and notaries responsibilities, that were transferred from the Undersecretariat of Justice to the Secretariat of State.

Structure

The Secretariat of State is composed of two departments: * The General Secretariat for Innovation and Quality of the Public Justice Service. *:The General Secretariat is the department responsible for modernizing the Judiciary and the Prosecution Ministry; maintain relationships with the

General Council of the Judiciary The General Council of the Judiciary ( es, Consejo General del Poder Judicial, CGPJ) is the national council of the judiciary of Spain. It is the constitutional body that governs all the Judiciary of Spain, such as courts, and judges, as it i ...

, the Prosecution Ministry and other bodies and associations of law experts, managing the goods from criminal activities, and exercising the government responsibilities on public registries and

and

. *:These functions are exercised through three departments: the ''Directorate-General for the Public Justice Service'', the ''Directorate-General for Digital Transformation of the Administration of Justice'', and the ''Directorate-General for Legal Security and Public Faith''. * The Directorate-General for International Legal Cooperation and Human Rights *:It is responsible for the international legal cooperation, the relations with the

and other organizations in legal matters and the promotion in the international sphere of

. *:For the exercise of this duties it has two departments: the ''Deputy Directorate-General for International Legal Cooperation'' and the ''Deputy Directorate-General for Justice Affairs in the European Union and International Organizations and Human Rights''.

Secretaries of State

References

{{Authority control Secretaries of State of Spain