Posted in: Legal
We have had many clients affected by unfair delays in Court processes. Section 292 of the Court and Judges Acts (Ley Organica del Poder Judicial) state that the Government should compensate citizens in case of damages caused by an error by Courts.
There are mainly three types of claims:
– Judge’s mistakes in resolutions
– Court mistakes
– Unfair delays in a court process
We are focusing this article on: UNFAIR DELAYS IN A COURT PROCESS
In this eventuality, the government should compensate clients if the Court process incurs major delays.
Major delays happen when a process takes longer than the “normal” period of time. What is the “normal” period? This for each process is published every year by the Judge Committee (Consejo General del Poder Judicial).
Compensation depends on each case, but it is advisable to prove that the delay caused damage to you. For example, a company may be solvent when you start the court process claiming a debt. There is a major delay dealing with the court process and, in the meantime, the company goes bankrupt, and you suffer a greater loss.
However just the delay, without any other damage, could be also compensated.
It doesn´t matter how busy the Courts are. They must be effective, otherwise, they must compensate in case of delays.
Time limitation is 1 year from the end of the proceeding or from the moment you can claim (in the above example it would be since the company went bankrupt).
The process starts with an online claim to the Government. They study the case and decide if a major delay exists, and if so, they offer a compensation. If the compensation is not good enough or Government doesn´t accept the delay, the next step is legal action.
We only need the information and documents to study if a claim if possible. If we think we have a good case, we will start the process with the claim first and with the legal action afterwards.
Our existing clients must be aware that this is a new process, completely different to any existing legal case, so a new case will have to be prepared and new costs will be produced.