Julia Álvarez
Julia Álvarez Resano
First woman appointed to serve as a magistrate
Villafranca, 1903 - Ciutat de Mèxic, 1948
Born in a village in Ribera de Navarra in 1903, Julia Álvarez Resano spent a quiet childhood within a context of extreme inequality, which determined both her professional development and her political participation linked to a steadfast commitment to social causes.
After earning her Education degree in 1921 as the valedictorian of her graduating class, she passed the civil service exams two year later. She combined her work as a teacher with Law studies, which she completed in 1927. In December 1933, she was admitted to the Bar Association of Pamplona, becoming the second woman member in Navarra, five years after María Lacunza. That same year, she ran as a candidate of the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, PSOE) for Navarra and Guipúzcoa, although she did not garner enough support to win. In 1936 she was sworn in as an MP for Madrid, the first woman from Navarra to become an MP.
Her milestone as the first woman to achieve this was repeated in the coming years. In 1937, in the midst of the Civil War, she was the first woman in Spain to become a civil governor, of Ciudad Real. After she resigned, she occupied two legal jobs in the judiciary: she was one of the first woman judges of Spain, as an interim judge in the Court of First Instance and Investigation in Alberic (Valencia), and as an interim magistrate in the Central Court of Espionage and High Treason during the Republic, becoming the first woman magistrate in Spain, even though she only served a little over a month there.
After the defeat of the republican troops in 1939, she was forced to go into exile in Mexico. In 1945, the Court of Political Responsibilities sentenced her with a fine of 3,000 pesetas and completely disqualified her from public office because of her role as a socialist MP and civil governor.
Julia Álvarez Resano is one of the woman jurists from the Republic who managed to access legal jobs and professions reserved for men for the first time from different political positions. More than half a century would have to go by before another woman entered the judiciary. We recall Julia Álvarez Resano as a champion of equality and remember that ceilings, either visible or invisible, can be broken on behalf of dignity and social justice.
Elisa Simó Soler
PhD in Law. Department of Procedural Law
Universitat de València
References:
- De Rodrigo Gutiérrez, Leonisa (2008). Personaje: Julia Álvarez Resano. Antzina: Revista de genealogía vasca e historia local, 5, 26-29.
- Díaz de Terán Velasco, María Cruz (2018). Mujeres y profesiones jurídicas en Navarra, Príncipe de Viana, 272, 989-1003.
- Lizarraga Vizcarra, Isabel (2020). ¡Que venga "la Julia"! Julia Álvarez Resano, la navarra que enardeció multitudes. Pamplona: Eunate.
- Vázquez Osuna, Federico (2009). Las primeras mujeres juezas y fiscales españolas (1931-1939) Las juristas pioneras. Arenal: Revista de historia de las mujeres, v. 16, 1,133-150: https://doi.org/10.30827/arenal.v16i1.1491
- Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya, Fons Josep Andreu i Abelló, caja nº 1. Julia Álvarez Resano. Diccionario biográfico de la Real Academia de la Historia, https://dbe.rah.es/biografias/51178/julia-alvarez-resano (accessed: 19.09.2022).
- Video: Por lema, la revolución. Blog de Isabel Lizarraga, 22.11.2021. A: https://isabellizarraga.blog/tag/julia-alvarez-resano/ (accessed: 19.09.2022).
Suggested citation:
Simó Soler, Elisa (2022). Julia Álvarez Resano. Pioneering Female Jurists: Remembrance and Memory [Electronic resource], Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, November 2022. In: https://ddd.uab.cat/record/268732
This web Pioneering Female Jurists: Remembrance and Memory was created as part of the teaching innovation and quality improvement project of the UAB 2021 (GI515402). Main researcher: María Jesús García Morales
