The Court of Instance of Pontevedra has recognized the right of a teacher from Vigo to be able to access partial retirement, after the Xunta denied it for not having a minimum of six consecutive years full-time just before retiring. The judge understands that this requirement was not included in the agreement signed with employers and unions, so it cannot be demanded of the worker.
According to the ruling, the worker began working at the school in 1986, in 2002 she went to work full-time, but later returned to part-time. He requested retirement, but the Xunta de Galicia denied it because he had not been full-time for the previous six years. According to the ruling (available in the Judiciary), he gave 13 hours a week and not 25 hours a full day.
The Ministry had signed on August 28, 2024 with the employers’ associations and the unions of the concerted organization (Education and Management, CECE, ACES, FSIE, UGT, CCOO and USO) an agreement to facilitate this form of retirement with relief contracts (a new teacher covers what the new retiree stops doing).
Now, the text that is published in the Official Gazette of Galicia required an indefinite full-time contract, as well as six years of seniority in delegated payment, but the instructions of the Ministry added that these were full-time in the six uninterrupted and immediately preceding years, something that the teacher did not comply with. The worker understood that this requirement was not in the agreement and that it should not apply to her, so she went to court.
Instructions cannot harden an agreement
In the Court of Instance of Pontevedra, the Xunta defended that a resolution could add additional requirements as long as it respected a higher standard, but the judge rejected it. He explains that although it can be used to apply an agreement, it is not valid “to add new restrictive obligations on its own initiative.”
Furthermore, the requirement “absolutely conditions the exercise of the right” and contradicts “the very spirit of the pact, aimed at promoting partial retirement.” In this way, since the teacher worked full-time from 2002 until she returned to part-time, it is understood that she met the requirements. In this way the teacher will be able to access partial retirement.
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Now, this has not been the only case, since the Court of Instance of A Coruña already ruled in February in favor of another teacher from a charter school in Santiago, who (like the other) started working in 1986 and who was denied partial retirement by the Xunta for having reduced her working day by five hours for six months to take care of her father (ruling of February 3, 2026). The judge points out that neither the General Social Security Law nor the agreement required that those six years be continued.