The criminal court number 6 of Girona, the one specializing in violence against women, is indicating speedy trials for a year and a half, by November 2024. “Rapid and November 2024 should be incompatible words,” the president said this morning Acting at the Girona Court, Adolfo Jesús GarcÃa Morales, who has called for the creation of a new criminal court for gender violence.
During the presentation of the judicial report of the Girona Court, which includes data from 2022, GarcÃa Morales acknowledged this afternoon that Girona prison 6 is “quite collapsed” since it has a level of cases of between 45% and 50% higher than that provided by the General Council of the Judiciary. This court resolves matters of threats, non-serious injuries or coercion, among others.
The holding of speedy trials should not exceed two or three months, but in the case of prison 6 in Girona, the trials of this type that are entering are set for November 2024. In addition, there are some 200 ordinary proceedings pending to be set, that will be moved beyond this date.
Some ordinary procedures such as breathalyzers, robberies or thefts that are tried in criminal courts 2, 4 or 5 “can be scheduled for November of this year”, according to the acting president of the Girona Court. “However, gender violence will be reported for November 2024,” he says.
Faced with this situation of “collapse”, GarcÃa Morales proposes the creation of a new criminal court in Girona that also brings together cases of gender violence dealt with in Figueres. It would be the criminal court 7 of Girona, focused only on gender violence.
However, the acting president acknowledges that the entry numbers “do not match a new court.” “It’s not so much the entry of issues, but rather the delay there is,” he says. The circumstance also occurs that this court must repeat some 80 trials that were left without a sentence after the magistrate became ill and resigned.
GarcÃa Morales also highlighted during his appearance “the extremely high volume of cases”, around 140% more than the Girona first instance courts.
Regarding the Commercial Court, which was 200% higher than the entry level, GarcÃa Morales is confident that with the start-up of a new court the number will be reduced “to less than half”.
Outside the capital, Girona, another of the courts in which the number of cases filed increased during 2022 was in the Courts of First Instance and Investigation of Figures, which has 60% more civil and criminal cases.
The acting president of the Girona Court proposes a new magistrate for the 2nd section of the Girona Provincial Court; a new Court of First Instance for Girona and another for Figueres. “We would ask for more but if we got those three we would be satisfied,” he said.
