Madrid, 7 January 2025. The Congress of Deputies has recently approved the Organic Law on Measures for the Efficiency of the Public Justice Service, which reforms the judicial organisation, introduces collective actions in defence of consumers and promotes alternative methods of conflict resolution. The new law - which aims to bring the judicial system closer to citizens - will replace the current single-person courts and justice offices in small municipalities and rural areas so that citizens can perform procedural procedures from their locality without having to travel to the court of first instance.
In this way, courts of first instance will be created to replace the current single-member courts, as well as the creation of municipal justice offices to replace the magistrates' courts. It is also planned to create judicial offices attached to each court of first instance. The aim is to promote specialisation, the unification of procedural criteria and to improve the distribution of workloads and the distribution of resources among all courts.
On the other hand, the new legislation also incorporates collective actions to defend the rights of consumers. The transposition of Directive (EU) 2020/1828 ensures that all Member States have at least one effective procedural mechanism for consumer organisations to bring actions against companies that infringe EU consumer law. It also introduces appropriate alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods, which are intended to encourage negotiation between the parties to a dispute and thus ease the workload of courts and tribunals. In this regard, it should be noted that, although these mechanisms are already contemplated in the social sphere, the government now wants to extend them to the civil and commercial fields by promoting private conciliation and facilitating the simple incorporation of agreements into the legal system. To this end, the collaboration of lawyers, solicitors, notaries and registrars will be promoted in order to reduce litigation.
According to the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts -Félix Bolaños-, this initiative represents ‘a decisive step towards modernising the public justice service, moving from a 19th century structure to one that is adapted to the needs of the 21st century’. He also pointed out that it will facilitate access to justice and allow it to be ‘closer to the citizen, especially in rural areas’.