15 Facts About Margarita Robles

Margarita Robles was the first woman ever to chair a contentious-administrative chamber, the first to ever preside a provincial court and the first woman to reach the Supreme Court of Spain.

Margarita Robles has held the positions of Secretary of State for Security during the Gonzalez Governments.

Margarita Robles was a member of the General Council of the Judiciary from September 2008 until December 2013 on the proposal of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party.

Margarita Robles belongs to the progressive judge association Judges for Democracy.

Margarita Robles undertook her primary education in the Teresian Carmelites school.

In 1981, at age 25, Margarita Robles entered the Judiciary, after completing her training at the Judiciary School, first of her class, and became the fourth woman judge in Spain.

Margarita Robles was the first woman ever to chair a contentious-administrative chamber.

Margarita Robles was a Justice at the Audiencia Provincial of Barcelona, becoming its Chief Justice at age 34, and becoming the first woman to be the chief justice of an Audiencia Provincial.

Between 1994 and 1996, during the last government of Felipe Gonzalez, Margarita Robles served as the first Secretary of State for the Interior, becoming the de facto second-in-command of the superministry of Justice and the Interior, under Belloch.

In May 2016, Margarita Robles jumped back into politics when Pedro Sanchez announced she would occupy the second spot of the socialist list for Madrid in the upcoming general election.

Margarita Robles positioned with Sanchez in the ensuing leadership crisis that affected the PSOE following the elections.

In June 2018, following the successful vote of no confidence against Mariano Rajoy, Margarita Robles was appointed Minister of Defence by the new Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

At the beginning of her term as Defence Minister, Margarita Robles had to face some controversies like the prohibition to use tattoos in visible places that mainly affected women, the publication of a manifesto by retired military officials in support of dictator Franco and more controversies around the S-80 class submarine.

Margarita Robles's comments were criticized by the Israeli embassy in Spain.

Margarita Robles praised the task of the Armed Forces, to which she attributed all the successes, and assumed "exclusively" all the errors that would have been committed as her own.