02/10/2020
The health crisis caused by COVID-19 has revealed the importance of having solid structures that take advantage of the possibilities offered by information technologies, so that citizens and public administrations can continue to interact, despite the difficulties that social distancing measures impose on us to contain the spread of the disease.
Thus, those organizations and entities -both public and private- that have assumed as an essential part of their strategies the digitalization of their architecture, have been able to continue providing their services and productive processes, mitigating both in their own interest and for the benefit of the citizens, the perverse effects that in social and economic terms have caused the paralysis of the country.
In the field of the Administration of Justice, the consequences are even more serious, since it is through this essential public service that the right to defense and effective judicial protection are conveyed, fundamental pillars on which our Rule of Law is based. Especially because for years our legal system has been regulating several rules referring to technological resources as a mechanism for the modernization of Justice.
The preamble of Law 18/2011 of July 5 states the legislator’s intention to implement in a generalized and mandatory manner the use of technology to improve the management of judicial offices, increase efficiency levels, reduce the cost of the service and ultimately improve confidence in the system. However, despite the importance of these objectives, they have been frustrated by an endemic lack of means and resources that the Bar Association has been demanding for some time.
In this sense, the deployment of the so-called New Judicial Office, through which the State Pact for the Reform of Justice of 2001 has been structured, has not truly reached its full potential, as it still has a marked analogical accent based on presence. As has become clear over the last few months, teleworking in the Administration of Justice has been far from the levels that would have been desirable, if we compare it with that of other administrations.
Thus, it is true that the Judges and Lawyers of the Administration of Justice have been able to telework by connecting telematically to the electronic judicial headquarters; but the vast majority of civil servants have not had this possibility, which would have placed us in a very different scenario in terms of congestion and pendency of proceedings that will take years to resolve.
Likewise, we must take into account the more than foreseeable increase in litigation due to the wide impact that the coronavirus has had on all types of legal relations, which will lead to an avalanche of lawsuits, such as: dismissals, EREs and ERTEs, Social Security procedures, insolvency proceedings of individuals and legal entities, non-payment of evictions, family proceedings, State health patrimonial liability, or challenges to sanctions imposed due to the violation of the confinement.