Ceuta dismisses Lucía Cerdeira as political advisor to the Socialist Group.

The president of the Autonomous City of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas Lara, has dismissed Lucía Cerdeira Argüelles as political advisor to the Socialist Parliamentary Group of the Assembly of Ceuta. The decision, adopted at the request of the group’s spokesperson, is published in the Official Gazette of the City of Ceuta (BOCCE) Extraordinary No. 40, of 13 August 2026, through decree 84. The dismissal takes effect from the date of publication of the resolution.

The resolution was signed on 12 August 2026 by the president, appointed by Royal Decree 523/2023, of 19 June, and countersigned by the acting general secretary, Juan Manuel Verdejo Rodríguez, and has been incorporated into the Registry of Decrees and Resolutions. According to the official text, the dismissal is agreed following the written communication sent by the spokesperson of the Socialist Parliamentary Group, who requested the advisor’s removal. The same issue of the gazette, of an extraordinary nature, concentrates the activity of temporary staff of the corporation.

Dismissal at the request of the socialist group

Decree 84 orders the dismissal of “the staff listed below as temporary staff,” and that list includes Lucía Cerdeira Argüelles in the position of political advisor. The advisor carried out her duties in the socialist group of the Assembly of Ceuta, and her replacement comes at the initiative of the group itself, not by direct decision of the president.

The dismissal falls within the free appointment that corresponds to the president of the local entity regarding staff in positions of trust. The measure implies no administrative or disciplinary reproach, and the agreement exhausts the administrative route.

Legal framework for temporary staff

The decision is based on the legal regime governing temporary staff of local entities. Article 104 of Law 7/1985, of 2 April, regulating the Bases of Local Government, in relation to Article 176 of Royal Legislative Decree 781/1986, of 18 April and Article 41.14 d) of Royal Decree 2568/1986, of 28 November, attributes to the Plenary the determination of the number, characteristics and remuneration of these employees.

Royal Legislative Decree 5/2015, of 30 October, approving the Consolidated Text of the Basic Statute of Public Employees, specifies in its Article 12 the features of the regime:

• Temporary staff only perform functions of trust or special advice, on a non-permanent basis.
• They are remunerated from the budgetary appropriations allocated for this purpose.
• Appointment and dismissal are free, and dismissal occurs in any case when the authority to whom the function is provided ceases to hold office.

A replacement in the same gazette

The Extraordinary BOCCE No. 40 also includes Decree 85, appointing Daniel López Ruiz as political adviser, with effect from the day following publication. The appointment is based on the budget amendment approved by the Plenary in September 2023, which reordered bases 29 and 30 of the City’s budgets relating to temporary staff and the allocation for political groups.

Appeal deadlines

Against the decree of dismissal, which exhausts the administrative route, interested parties may file:

• An optional appeal for reconsideration before the same body within one month from notification or publication.
• An administrative contentious appeal before the Contentious-Administrative Courts of Ceuta within two months, in accordance with Law 39/2015, of 1 October, on the Common Administrative Procedure.

The move rebalances the allocation of advisers to the political groups of the Assembly of Ceuta, a sensitive area of local administration because these are positions of trust financed from the City’s budgets. With the dismissal and the appointment published on the same day, the corporation updates its structure of temporary staff, which remains linked to the trust of the groups and the president.

Source: Official Gazette of the City of Ceuta (BOCCE), Extraordinary No. 40, 13 August 2026, Authorities and Personnel section, pp. 3213-3214 (official reference: Decree 84 of the President of the City).