Dr. Javier Junceda
Javier Junceda, a renowned jurist, former Dean of the Faculty of Law at the International University of Catalonia and full member of the Royal European Academy of Doctors (RAED), shares with the academic community the articles “The Jurist’s Summer”, “Ninety Years Ago” and “Asturianeando”, published respectively on the specialist portal Confilegal, the digital newspaper El Debate and the daily newspaper La Nueva España on 29 July. In them, he addresses both the arrival of summer and the resulting change in professional routines, and the anniversary of the massacre at Madrid’s Modelo Prison at the beginning of the Civil War. During the same month, La Nueva España also reported his appointment as Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law of the National University of San Marcos in Lima, starting in the next academic year.
In “The Jurist’s Summer”, the academic explains the incessant activity of any practising legal professional during the holidays, opening a debate on dedication to a job that is also a vocation, rest and work-life balance. “There is no summer in which a person devoted to the law is not reminded, every day, of their professional work. It makes no difference that they are on holiday: their legal condition is their long shadow, accompanying them to the bar, the terrace, the walk along the harbour or through the mountains, the tennis court or the table of that idyllic restaurant where they have arranged to meet their loved ones to enjoy some exquisite squid in its own ink,” he explains.
In “Ninety Years Ago”, the jurist recalls the murder of around thirty distinguished politicians and military officers in August 1936 because of their alleged participation in the military uprising, even though some had no involvement whatsoever, as was the case with the President of the Congress of Deputies, Melquíades Álvarez, and the ministers Manuel Rico Avello and Ramón Álvarez-Valdés. “Although they had been taken to prison to guarantee their safety, it was there that they would find their scaffold. Each was arrested at home, which was also looted by a police force that obeyed no law whatsoever. They survived in filthy, overcrowded cells, barely eating what their relatives managed to bring them. They suffered constant humiliation at the hands of their guards, including physical abuse, mockery and insults, to the point that Melquíades Álvarez had to beg them to end their lives once and for all, but to stop tormenting them,” he explains.
Finally, in “Asturianeando”, Junceda refers to the massive arrival of visitors from outside Asturias during the summer and the lukewarm welcome they have historically received from locals, the difficulty of finding beaches or restaurant tables without advance bookings, and the transformation of the Principality’s coastal and inland landscapes during this period. “As I am not sure that we remain a climate refuge in view of the succession of heatwaves, I suspect that this ‘Asturian-style summering’ will increasingly resemble southern ways, so we should not rule out having to swap the traditional cap for a straw hat, bagpipes for maracas, and cider at country fairs for mojitos at lively parties, turning the classic ways of spending the summer here into genuine museum pieces,” he concludes.
Founder and director of Junceda Abogados, the new academic is a full member of the Royal Institute of Asturian Studies, where he chairs the Commission on Law, Social and Economic Sciences, and a full member of the Royal Asturian Academy of Jurisprudence, a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation of Spain and the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, and an honorary member of the Peruvian Academy of Law. He is a member of the Barcelona Arbitration Court, the Arbitration Court of the European Arbitration Association, based in Madrid, and the Arbitration Court of the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. Since 2016, he has been a member of the Commission for Urban Planning and Territorial Development of the Principality of Asturias, elected from among experts of recognised standing, and a member of the Advisory Council of the Spanish Association of Urban Planning Law.
He has participated as an expert in 18 parliamentary committees on legislative reform and has drafted various bills, legislative proposals and regulatory provisions. He is the author or co-author of more than two hundred legal works, some of which have served as the basis for court rulings by the Constitutional Court of Chile, the Supreme Court of Peru and courts in Bolivia. He has received distinctions in the Luis Sela Sampil Awards for doctrinal articles of the Faculty of Law at the University of Oviedo, and on two occasions in the prestigious Financial Studies Award (1992 and 2012), organised by the Centre for Financial Studies in Madrid. He is also a member of the editorial boards of 14 Spanish and international legal journals. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by six foreign universities and appointed honorary professor by another six. He has served as director, speaker or lecturer in more than fifty training programmes held in Spain and Ibero-America.
