Justice assigns the psychosocial teams of the courts to Legal Medicine

The General Directorate of Justice and Victims of Terrorism has functionally assigned the six positions that make up the Psychosocial Team of the Courts and Tribunals of Cantabria to the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Cantabria (IMLC). The decision is formalized through the resolution with reference CVE-2026-7984, published in the Official Gazette of Cantabria number 198, dated October 15, 2026, and takes effect from the date of its publication. The document was signed in Santander on October 6, 2026, by the Director General of Justice and Victims of Terrorism, Juan Ignacio Sáez Bereciartu.

Complaints from the High Court of Justice

The text acknowledges that the situation of the psychosocial teams “has been the subject of numerous complaints” by the Governing Chamber of the High Court of Justice of Cantabria, repeatedly reflected in its annual reports. The resolution details previous attempts by the Government of Cantabria to correct the service:

• Creation of the Torrelavega section of the Psychosocial Team in 2021.
• A 50% increase in the number of assigned technicians, which rose from four to six.
• Appointments of interim staff due to the accumulation of tasks over the last two years.

Despite these efforts, the Ministry of Presidency, Justice, Security, and Administrative Simplification concludes that “the results obtained have not been satisfactory” and that the current organizational model “is not the most appropriate,” as it generates coordination and performance control problems. The resolution emphasizes that these professionals lacked a hierarchical functional organization to organize, coordinate, supervise, and control their tasks, which eventually hindered the delimitation of competencies with the Comprehensive Forensic Assessment Unit.

Affected positions and those excluded

The list of positions of the General Directorate, which remains unchanged, includes eight posts for psychology and social work. The functional assignment affects six of them:

• 9541 Senior Technician - Psychologist.
• 9544 Senior Technician - Psychologist.
• 10451 Senior Technician - Psychologist.
• 9549 Intermediate Grade Technician - Social Worker.
• 9550 Intermediate Grade Technician - Social Worker.
• 10453 Intermediate Grade Technician - Social Worker.

These six positions are divided between the Santander section (9541, 9544, 9549, and 9550) and the Torrelavega section (10451 and 10453). Positions 9543 and 9552 are excluded, as they are already integrated into the Comprehensive Forensic Assessment Unit of the IMLC, as well as the Minors’ Technical Team based in Santander (positions 9397, 9551, and 9553), which functionally depends on the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office. Interim officials from the Psychology and Social Work corps appointed to provide services at the Institute are also assigned.

New distribution of reports and two-month deadline

The resolution is based on Article 479.3 of the Organic Law 6/1985, of July 1, of the Judiciary, following the modification carried out by LO 7/2015, of July 21, which allows the integration of the remaining psychosocial teams providing services to the Administration of Justice into the Legal Medicine Institutes. The technicians will maintain their functions of preparing expert reports, but the Institute’s management will assume the organization of schedules, the control of issuance times, statistics, and the annual activity report, in addition to relations with judicial bodies, the prosecutor’s office, and family meeting points.

The new procedure establishes these rules:

• Requests for psychological or social reports shall be sent to the IMLC through the VEREDA system.
• The Institute’s management will distribute the cases among the professionals according to the object of the expert assessment.
• The report must not exceed two months from the first interview; any extension must be reasonably justified.
• The Institute will send an annual report to the General Directorate of Justice and Victims of Terrorism.

The integration will allow the six technicians to be added to the two already included in the Comprehensive Forensic Assessment Unit, so that all can jointly address the requests from judicial bodies. Against the resolution, which does not end the administrative route, an appeal for reversal (recurso de alzada) may be filed before the Counselor of Presidency, Justice, Security, and Administrative Simplification within one month, in accordance with the Cantabria Law 5/2018, of November 22, and Articles 121 and 122 of Law 39/2015, of October 1.

The measure directly affects the care of victims and families in judicial processes: psychosocial reports are a key piece in family, minors, and gender violence proceedings, and their delay affects guardianship, custody, and protection measures. With the assignment to the IMLC, the Department seeks a more equitable distribution of expert assessments, greater speed in evaluations, and effective supervision of service quality, although structural measures are postponed to the medium term.

Source: Official Gazette of Cantabria, no. 198, of October 15, 2026, Ministry of Presidency, Justice, Security and Administrative Simplification, pp. 52776-52779 (official reference: CVE-2026-7984).