What are lawyers doing to address the delays in the Justice Administration System?

This topic has arisen on another thread so I thought I would address it on the Spanish Lawyers Forum.

The question that we are asking is, is it standard practice within the legal fraternity to report cases of major delays to the CGPJ? How many lawyers are doing this as an automatic procedure when delays go beyond a reasonable timescale?

We, as consumers, now wish that lawyers would become more pro-active to feedback to the Justice Administrators the significance of these consistent major delays to the application of Justice, as all too many clients are now being compromised having won their cases but denied return of monies as per the first instance judgements (and embargoes thereafter).

It is no longer viable to accept the status quo and we ask that good lawyers become more pro-active in addressing this very real problem that is decimating the rule of law in Spain. Are you reporting this back to the government? Are you keeping a record of the numbers of clients affected by these delays? Have lawyers witnessed any beneficial feedback/action from the CGPJ that have positively impacted on their clients' cases? Do you have any faith in the present complaint procedures, or do you feel there is need for an overhaul of this procedure?

What exactly are lawyers doing to address the delays in the Justice Administration System and effect fair justice for their clients?

 So long as lawyers fail  to provide evidence of major delays and the impact on their clients to the government and their justice administrators, then we can only conclude that lawyers are content to  perpetuate this abuse.

 We send constant communications to the General Council of Judidial Power on this.

And please, Maria, what is their response?  How do they deal with complaints?

Actively?

Smpathetically?

Brushed off?

Ignored?

Ruth

It depends, but yes, we have seen results on cases being moved ahead/ forward after our requests.

Maria,

Back in October you observed the following "

Yes, Keith is approaching the CGPJ on Bank Guarantees, but any other matter related to organisation and functioning of justice can be also broght to this body. They are happy to receive and face them."

Have you seen any more resources being provided to the courts to improve and cater for these major delays, or is this not part of the CGPJ's remit? Who is ultimately responsible to act upon these complaints and provide solutions? Are they just responded to piecemeal rather than recognise there is a problem here? Or perhaps there have not been sufficient complaints placed for them to respond? 

What is your understanding of this process and the way it is being handled Maria?

 I honestly think they are doing both: anweering specific requests or claims on delays in determined Courts and also they are facing an important process of modernization and technology application to the administration of Justice.

There are informative posts on this modernization process in our blog. You can see them here,  here and here

Thank you Maria.

With regard to this "First good new: This Law also opens the "small claim procedure" ( procedimiento monitorio) to claims of up to 150.000 €. Statistics show that more than 50% of the small claims procedures end up with an in-court settlement which avoids long declarative contradictory procedures.This will also work for a discharge of the courts' load...... and for a relief in the anxiety of claimers... for sure! "

does this mean that those stuck within the existing system with first instance judgements less than 150,000 euros (with appeal outstanding) can now look to this small claim procedure for return of monies and a swifter resolution to their case? Or is this not relevant to breach of contract cases against a developer? Are youplanning on using this new legal route for new claims against the Bank?

 Also since this was issued (Nov 2009) have many new cases been resolved using this procedure?

This message was last edited by ads on 21/12/2010.

This message was last edited by ads on 21/12/2010.

 I have noticed this blog about the delays in the administration of justice and would like to add my comments.

Delays and incompetence in the administration of justice in Spain has cost me the loss of my 2,000,000 euro home, the breakup of my family and the loss of our future happiness here on the Costa del Sol.

Because of indecision and confusion by the local lady judge as to who exactly owns my Gibraltar off-shore company that ultimately owns my property, sentences dictated by the Audiencia Provincial de Malaga (Appeal Court)after study of the facts, instructed the local court that I have been  recognised as the “authentic” owner of my company and consequently the owner of my property and that furthermore, I cannot in the present action, against my wife alone as tenant,  be removed from my property.  This the local judge chose to ignore these higher court instructions and issued contrary instructions; consequently on the 19^th October this year, I along with my entire family of eight, was evicted from the home I built and have lived in for 24 years, with no charges, mortgages, liens or encumbrances registered against it.  Appeals and opposition arguments have been entered into the local court, both before the eviction on the 2^nd September and after, on the 25^th October,  none of which been acknowledged, let alone responded to.  A Queja (official complaint) entered in the Consejo General de Poder Judicial was finally answered after nearly four weeks where clearly they had not addressed the complaint justly or even responded to the questions raised. And now, the local lady judge who has destroyed so much is leaving the Estepona court after having served just six months in office.  The chances of a review of my case by the new judge is not going to be his or her priority,  especially where it may be condemning his or her predecessor.  

As a matter of interest, an independent poll recently carried out in Spain indicated that 50% of the people questioned believed the Spanish Justice system to be corrupt and that only money buys justice. Unfortunately, after living in Spain for over 30 years, I now have to agree with this assertion. I would welcome someone proving me wrong – at least in my case.

Anyone interested to know more about my particular case and the gross injustice I am fighting should read my two blogs 27^th November “Our Home has been stolen”  and 15^th December “Unimaginable injustice in Spain “

Peter2010

Peter

Words fail me... If ever there is a case to prove that this is real life experiences that we are referring to here and not some theoretical review of a Justice Administration system and a legal system in disarray, with innocent people being used as pawns while warring factions play their power games , then this is it. Your situation is tragic, a disgrace, and I feel you should publicise this globally, via youtube or by whatever means you can.

I keep saying this but just how bad does this have to get before the EU, the Spanish Government, our own Government, and everyone who is aware of these terrible injustices moves to fast track to a system that makes those responsible accountable for their actions.

 Hi Ads,

Thanks for your response dated 22^nd December and kind words of sympathy.  We have just learnt that the judge who has wrecked our lives has now left Estepona court and her replacement is due to arrive in the New Year. This judge will have 10 days to install herself before hearing any cases, then at the end of January will be leaving for another circuit. The judge is allowed 10 days prior to leaving to put outstanding matters in order – consequently the judge´s power in Estepona will only last 10 days – just how ridiculous is this !!! – A new judge will arrive in February and after his or her first 10 days will might be able to put demands in for the answers to our original oppositions entered on the 2^nd September and the 25^th October to which we still have not even received official recognition of existence.

Referring to my case – so many  people find it hard to believe and are convinced there is some facts not being revealed – this is certainly not the case – what is a fact is the gross injustice perpetrated by the Estepona Court House .

In its simplest form to understand this disgraceful legal incompetence - this is what needs to be considered.

My wife was taken to court by the Nominees of my company to have her removed from my property on the grounds that her tenancy arrangements established between her and I had come to an end. In 2007 the lady judge in Estepona saw in favour of my company, acting under the direction of my nominees as plaintiff, and order her eviction. This was appealed before Malaga Appeal Court where the eviction of my wife was upheld, however the Appeal Court Judges reviewing all the evidence and with a good understanding of the complications of fiduciary law, identified correctly that I was in fact (using their words)  the “authentic” owner of the company and therefore the owner of the property in litigation (the property I built under the name of my company and have lived in with my wife and family since 1986). The Appeal Court issued a supplementary sentence stating that in this particular case against my wife, I could not and should not be removed. 

When these sentences arrived at Estepona  for preparation of execution sentence, unauthorised changes were made to include myself to be evicted from the property. This “altered” sentence was issued on the 8^th June but took seven weeks to travel the 4 kms to my home, arriving on the last day of July half an hour before the courts were closing for summer. Our first opportunity to enter opposition against these unauthorised changes was the 2^nd September (29^th Decemeber, we still have not received either acknowledgement or answers. When the eviction date arrived on the 19^th October – it was not the court orders of Malaga Appeal Court that ordered my entire family from our property – it was the local police under the orders of the lady judge (not the same lady judge as the first hearing – this one has only served six months at Estepona and evidently knows nothing about upholding the laws or respecting sentences from higher courts) Possession was lost in that moment.

An immediate appeal was entered after the eviction for explanation as to why the orders of Malaga had not been respected- needless to say this too, has not been acknowledged or responded to. We cannot appeal back to the higher Appeal Court of Malaga until Estepona Court answers in the first instance – so we are caught in a “catch 22”. Once they finally answer, which undoubtedly will be in the negative – we will then have the opportunity to appeal to Malaga where hopefully they will re-insist on their sentences being upheld and very possibly order a reversal of the eviction against me and my reinstatement into my property. In the meantime my gardens are being bulldozed with trees planted during the last twenty five years being uprooted, garden beds destroyed. And added to this vandalism has now shown its ugly head by having two external doors smashed in and brand new windows and their frames cut out and stolen, pipes cut and the main water heater stolen – with all the digging and destruction of the gardens and now window and door openings boarded up – our beautiful home of twenty five years in resembling an abandoned property and just inviting vandals to do their business. It is so pitiful to think that just three months ago we, as a family of 8 through three generations were living in a our beautiful home with the most exquisite gardens, all in perfect condition. And now, because of a reckless illegal decision by a stupid, irresponsible judge with no experience of matters before her and ignoring orders from a higher court,  has destroyed our  dreams, our future, broken up our family and allowed our 2,000,000 euro home to be legally stolen by a ruthless, Gibraltar based bank that has never had an interest in it, never visited it, never provided a mortgage for it, has no registered charges against it – Maybe it’s my imagination but could a bank really stoop so low as to “influence” the judge in some way ???????

Anyone picking up on these comments and wondering what this is all about please read a fuller account of this terrible nightmare on two earlier blogs :-

“OUR HOME HAS BEEN STOLEN” dated 27^th November

“UNIMAGINABLE INJUSTICE IN SPAIN”  - “JUDGE ORDERED MY HOME TO BE STOLEN” dated 15^th December

I would welcome any constructive comments, especially from any lawyers that can explain the ways in which justice is administered in Spain and where is one´s rights to defend themselves and protect their property; especially against a judiciary where even the judges fail to respect the laws they are supposed to be upholding

Any relevant comments can be directed to me directly on my email address shown in my blog detailed above of the 15^th December

Peter - Estepona

Peter2010

Regarding the CGPJ and their effectiveness we have just had a response to our complaint relating to a 2 year 8 month delay following the developer appeal and we still await a resolution from the judge. We have been advised that the final appeal resolution will not occur until another 11 months so in total we will have been waiting 3 years and 7 months for a resolution. The CGPJ have stated that all stages have been completed properly according to their internal organization and the general rules, consequently there is not a "real delay".

So there we have it. The CGPJ do not consider this a problem even though every day that this continues, we are at risk of the developer going into administration and thereby lose the opportunity for return of monies as per our first instance judgement.

This is totally unsatisfactory and equally frustrating for good Lawyers, Procurators, and according to our legal team the palintiffs seem not to have "any suitable weapon" to put pressure on court decisions, although the CGPJ offers this kind of service.

Why should we stand for this nonsense? Why are Spanish lawyers not taking affirmative action against this injustifiable administrative fiasco? Why are they just accepting the status quo? When are they going to take a strong stance and a more pro-active role in identifying that Spanish justice is being compromised......

WHAT ARE THE LEGAL PROFESSIONALS GOING TO DO ABOUT THIS?

Unfortunately Ads probably nothing.  I have been waiting nearly 3 years for justice.  I was not provided with a Bank Guarantee and under the Law 57/68 this is totally illegal.  The great justice system cannot perform the decent thing and give me and hundreds of others their substantial deposits back even though without a doubt they are proven wrong and extremely slow. 

I want to know what spain is prepared to do about their problem.  If they do not get their act together the british people will not buy their properties which lets face it goes a long way to keeping them afloat as a country.  Personally, I think the only thing that is keeping spain afloat now is our deposits.  I am truly disappointed with the way we are being treated.  I know an awful lot of people in the UK who have been put off from buying in spain because they are seeing how I and others on EOS are being treated. Its disgraceful.  I have come to understand that if my Lawyer says I have won a battle in court that it does not really mean won it just means nothing is progressing. There should be clear time constraints put on these people so that at least there is hope for those in these situations.

Sorry to rant but I am fed up of seeing Christmas's come and go and my deposit still sits in the spanish bank or in some builders back pocket.

Best wishes to all for this New Year from a very disappointed  Chrissie1

 A difrerent petition? Keith´s one?

Maria, we are all doing what we can via petitions and of course Keith's petition is addressing this, but I have to repeat what are the legal professionals going to do about this?

Legal professionals should not be relying on us solely to bring attention to these abusive delays. You should be enlisiting your own fellow professionals to take action and call for immediate reform and sufficient resources to be made available to provide a decent and efficient system of justice with reasonable time constraints in place. Until such time as this happens there will be little incentive to follow through with legal action in Spain. This is a major problem that no matter what legal path we tread, it will always result in the same outcome.

How many more have to follow in Goodstich's footsteps where the delays compromise their ability to receive recompense as per their successful legal judgements? No matter which way we turn these delays are proving the major stumbling block to true justice. 

This message was last edited by ads on 03/01/2011.

This is certainly employment for spain, some will have jobs for life and a very nice life to boot because the spanish law does not intend being fair or just.  It is very clear that how ever many petitions are signed it is still down to the legal professionals  to act in the best interest of its clients i.e. us.  I cannot see things changing unless someone understands in spain what this is going to mean in the long term for all concerned, this includes the spanish. 

I feel insulted by the reply below.  It comes down to humanity and human beings being treated fairly and with respect something that is very much missing.  I live my life honestly and could not live with myself if I felt I was in a position to change things and did not.  May I kindly ask Maria how many petitions you have had to sign to achieve getting what is rightfully yours back.

I will probably not get a reply to this because it is a bit near to reality but then I have come to expect nothing more.

Regards Chrissie

Maria,

I hope you don't mind but I'm posting your blog on here as it's very relevant. See below.

______________________________________________________________________________

Quite "ad hoc", specially becuase of the discussions in our forums of recent days regarding how lawyers can contribute to improve the status of the Justice administration in Spain, I received yesterday the newsletter of the General Council of Lawyers and read with special interest an article by his current president Carlos Carnicer .

There are ellections for the renewal of the presidency next Friday, the 14th of January, so it must be a good time for the initiative that you are aksing us to promote to start working.

The article is on a lecture that Mr. Carnicer delivered in Club Siglo XXI and he says, among other statements:

-After 32 years of Constitution in Spain, the desires of citizenship for a serene, balanced, pro-guaranatee and efficient judicial system for the achievement of Justice, fully committed with the defense of fundamental rights and public liberties, which can generate trust among citizenships has not been completely met.

- The Administration of Justice has the lower level of steem among administrations by citizens

- The Administration of Justice is not producing adequate responses to the attempts for modernization that are being promoted. Justice is still slow, which means it is bad or unefficient.

- Politicians have generally shown low interest for the improvement of this Administration, probably because it does not make them gain votes.

- There is a clear lack of coordination among the Ministry of Justice, the General Council of Judicial Power and eleven regions ( Comunidades Autónomas) with transfered competencies.

- The best budgets for the Justice Administration are  the current ones, in this crisis times.

The most interesting statement in my opinion is that of the overcoming of the crisis of the Judicial administration to need not just an adequate budget but also agility for the legislative initiative and developments and the collaboration of Public Administrations, proffessionals and users of the services of Justice, being General Councils among these.

It is serious we are starting to work on gathering lawyers for a call to the General Council of Lawyers so we can influence them for them to influence changes on the effectiveness of the judicial system. We are creating a small website with Forums, an open and simple one just for open proposals and availability by Lawyers in Spain.

Does it sound good?

Maria,

It's essential that you feedback the dire impact of delays on the application of justice as things stand now and the impression that it gives to all those who see Spain as a potential place to invest in the future. Many will not be wiiling to take the risk if nothing is done to demonstrate, (in actions not words I hasten to add), that the government and Justice Department are willing and able to commit to reforming what at present is a half way system, where innocent consumers win their first instance cases but are denied recompense due to overwhelming judicial delays. We really need some reasonable time constraints in place with strict penalties and/or compensation for those denied justice. It's the only way that accountability can ever be achieved.

We also need some form of statistics in place to identify and monitor the administration of justice.Please can you discuss this with Keith as he has first hand experience now and may well have much to offer in terms of solutions from a consumer advocate point of view.

This message was last edited by ads on 05/01/2011.

This message was last edited by ads on 05/01/2011.

Even an extraordinary admission by legal professionals of their failure of being able to put things right the question is What now? It is a totally inept and corrupt system.  If I give a deposit for a house that has never been built and was not given a bank guarantee I should have either my money back or the house that was promised by the builder in the contract.  This is still TOTALLY ILLEGAL  which ever way you put it.  Again it is the good old british public footing the bill for someone elses mess. It is not our fault if the spanish legal system is a failure.  Does anyone know if there are spanish lawyers working in britain who would be able or brave enough to go to town on this abusive situation.  Surely there are so many of us that something or someone would be able to help here in britain?  Has anyone got any ideas of how we could tackle this from another angle because it is obviously like pushing an elephant up a mountain in spain.

Regards Chrissie1

Up the anti and global publicity and report the injustices to AVAAZ ????

(Avaaz is an effective global web movement to bring people-powered politics to decision-making everywhere. see www.avaaz.org )