María del Rosario García Álvarez
Senior Fellow – Spain
María del Rosario García Álvarez serves as a judge of the Employment Division of the Madrid High Court of Justice. Her areas of judicial practice are civil, employment and labor law.
About María del Rosario García Álvarez
María del Rosario García Álvarez currently serves as a judge of the Employment Division of the Madrid High Court of Justice. Her areas of judicial practice have been civil, employment and labor law, since 1987, when she began her judicial career. As a Judge at the appellate level, she hears all matters arising from employment and labor issues, including individual and group conflicts. She has competent jurisdiction for the supervision of all aspects related to the accounting, economic and financial situations of companies and corporations regarding their intention to apply redundancy schemes (labor force reductions) in times of economic difficulties or insolvency, or as a result of management decisions to streamline the business.
In addition to her role as a sitting judge, her interests focus on issues related to conflict resolution, both nationally and internationally, mediation, arbitration, other forms of alternative dispute resolution, and dispute systems design. She has participated in several mediation skills training programs and has published a series of articles on employment law, mediation, and dispute resolution.
Judge García Álvarez has lead responsibility for designing, implementing, managing, and directing a project to introduce a court-connected mediation program in the Employment Courts in Madrid and for assisting and encouraging other judges to develop similar initiatives.
She is an associate professor of mediation and dispute resolution at ICADE Law School and a regular lecturer on master’s degree courses at various universities, as well as a frequent speaker at law seminars and conferences.
Judge García-Alvarez is a member of GEMME (European Association of Judges for Mediation), the International Women’s Forum, the International Association of Women Judges and Judges for Democracy.
Litigation Practice
Judge Garcia Álvarez’s litigation practice focuses on employment law, including:
- All type of rights and obligations stemming from employment contracts
- Compliance with the law of collective wage agreements executed in Spain and any claims arising from labor disputes that take place in the territory of Spain
- Social Security claims against Spanish companies or entities, which have a registered address, branch, office or any other representation in Spain
- All aspects related to the accounting, economic and financial situations of companies and corporations intending to apply redundancy schemes (labor force reduction) in times of economic difficulties or insolvency, or as a result of management decisions to streamline the business
Judge Garcia Álvarez’s first judicial appointment was to the Barcelona district courts in October of 1987. She was promoted to Senior Judge in 1989 and has received several judicial appointments since. She currently sits on the Employment Division of the Madrid High Court of Justice, where she served as presiding judge of its second section from 2008 to 2013, supervising, organizing, and coordinating the allocation of proceedings to the reporter judges. She also worked as legal advisor to the Spanish Ombudsman, Area of Justice, in the Special Services Mission from 1989 to 1990.
She has personally written nearly 10,000 legal judgments and dealt with more than 21,000 cases in different stages of proceedings thus far as part of her judicial career.
Mediation Practice
As a first instance judge, Judge García Álvarez has conducted intra-judicial conciliations before hearings. As presiding High Court Judge, she oversaw pre-trial conciliation hearings in the following areas: Contract terms, benefits denial, demotion, disciplinary issues, holidays and holiday pay, incentives, job classification and evaluation, overtime, fringe benefits, past practice, promotions and reassignments, unfair dismissals, redundancies/layoff, wages, collective bargaining, collective conflicts (between employers/business entrepreneurs and trade unions), subcontracting, successor, transfer, sexual harassment, bullying, equality at work, employment discrimination (sex, age, disability etc), worker’s compensation, misconducts, breach of contract, constructive dismissal, suits for retaliation, working hours, working conditions, withdrawal liability and termination of contracts.
