A ruling by the Constitutional Court at the end of last year made this very clear. An efficient judicial system – picks up that ruling – has to manage its workload and delays, even if this deficiency is not attributable to the judicial body. Because? Because the citizens, says that sentence, deserve to obtain the resolution of their dispute in reasonable times. If not, “a violation of rights will be incurred.”
Knowing this sentence and having seen the collapses in many courts, with inadmissible delays in the resolution of matters –here the account is made for long years–, no one would refute a first conclusion: nor does justice comply with its own sentences. Examples abound. The system is incapable – and this reality is complicated by the latest protests by judicial actors – of issuing quick decisions and complying with the calendars set by the courts themselves. Some statistics or studies (Arriaga Asociados) speak of terms of almost 32 months, which can reach 60, in resolving the most complex issues. That is the average between the cases resolved on time and those that take forever.
In labor lawsuits, with workers who are left without work and salary, and await judicial support, the appointments are set within a year and a half. In the civil jurisdiction it is normal to wait more than eight months to receive a sentence. And in cases of accidents at work, the delay in resolving these matters takes, according to data from the Prosecutor’s Office itself, an average of six years.
The origin of this endemic collapse, which exacts that expensive bill among citizens? The judicial actors agree: work overload, lack of human and material resources, and few courts to deal with the current volume of work.
The ruling of the Constitutional Court that criticizes these delays refers to a labor matter in which it took three years for the judgment to be set. And what is worrying, not to say very serious, is that it is not an isolated event. There are dozens of causes with longer unjustified delays in time.
A court in Toledo, for example, has indicated for June of this year a guardianship and custody claim filed in 2017. Here the well-being of a minor is settled, whose father was denounced for sexist violence. Well, not even so has the case been moved or been able to accelerate, which has been dragging on in a judicial office for six years.
In another court in the same city, a judge took four and a half years to issue a decision, also in a custody case. The mother requested custody and when the sentence came, the judge ruled that having spent so much time between the lawsuit and the resolution, the girl had already gotten used to living with her father and considered that removing her from that environment now would be counterproductive.
None of this should come as a surprise knowing what some reports say, such as the one issued by the European Commission, in which it is reported that Spain is one of the EU countries with fewer judges. Although in the section on investments in justice it is not among the last. It is possible to presume, therefore, that these resources are not being invested well.
In this section of comparisons, Spain also appears among the countries with the longest delays in the execution of sentences. It is collected by the report The 2022 EU justice scoreboard. A devastating study, as it concludes that in this country the courts are not capable of discharging all the matters that enter their offices. Our neighbors are more diligent in this matter. In Belgium, the term to obtain a resolution is around two months; in France, between three and four months.
Arriaga Asociados, with more than 60,000 clients in procedures for the annulment of abusive clauses, has just taken a step to denounce these unjustified delays. They understand that the right of every citizen “to a process without delay and to effective judicial protection” is being systematically violated. That office is appealing the paralyzed procedures for more than two years and directing the courts requests for impulse. If all lawyers did the same, those offices would experience a new collapse.
The Ombudsman, Ãngel Gabilondo, once again delves into this endemic collapse of justice in his latest report. He reveals that the complaints about unjustified delays in those offices “does not stop increasing.” He speaks, in that report, of a judicial process that has been open in a court in the mountains of Madrid for more than 24 years.
To all this we must add the bill, paid by all Spaniards, for the anomalous functioning of justice. A CGPJ report reveals that errors or undue delays cost 3.17 million euros in compensation last year, 38% more than in 2021.
