The average wait in the Social organs continues to increase and is already close to the year
Against all odds, the region’s courts managed, in the third quarter of this year, to slightly alleviate the delay they are dragging. The average times were reduced between July and September to an average of 7.5 months of waiting to obtain a response in the first instance, according to the latest data collected by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The figure – although slightly higher than the one handled in the second quarter of the year – represents a reduction of up to 13.7% compared to the times that were recorded in the same period of 2020, an exercise clearly marked by Covid. The Murcian courts, however, have not been able to recover the level of delay, already alarming, that they handled before the pandemic upset everything and they continue among the slowest in the country.
As has been the case for years, Murcians are, after the Castilian-Manchegos, the Spaniards who most need to arm themselves with patience to find a first response to their lawsuit. With an average of 7.5 months –in First Instance–, response times in the Murcian courts are the second highest in the country, according to the balance offered by the CGPJ. Only in Castilla-La Mancha is the delay even greater – up to 7.9 months. The national average is half a year.
SOME DATA
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46,105
Matters entered the Murcian Justice between the months of July and September. -
30.37
cases per thousand inhabitants is the litigation rate, the fifth highest in the country. -
126,121
matters still remain in the Community courts pending a response.
Although the situation has improved remarkably compared to last year, the courts, with their 7.5 months of average waiting to issue a first resolution, are now even further behind than before the pandemic. In 2019 the average wait was around 6.7 months and in 2018 the times were somewhat better: 6.3.
Those most sensitive to the crisis
If there is a jurisdiction sensitive to the havoc that the Covid crisis is causing in the streets, that is, without a doubt, the Social one. These organs, some of the most saturated and slowest in the country, are the ones that most feel the onslaught of the pandemic. In the third quarter of the year, according to the data provided by the Judiciary, these bodies took an average of almost a year –11.8 months– to dispatch a case. The delay increased dramatically – in 2019 it was 9.8 – as a result of the health crisis and the practical judicial stoppage. The delay registered between July and September represents an improvement –of 4.5% – compared to the same period of the previous year, but the delay is still too long in a jurisdiction that must decide on layoffs, wage claims, collective disputes. ..
The situation also continues to be particularly worrying in the Civil Courts since, although these bodies have managed to improve their times, the average wait is close to 10.3 months.
The analysis of the response times of the Murcian courts cannot be separated, however, from the low ratio of judges that the Region of Murcia drags and its high litigation. Between July and September the Murcian courts entered a whopping 46,105 cases. The figure, although it is 22.9% less than in the same period of the previous year, translates into more than 512 daily cases. The litigation rate –which marks the cases filed per thousand inhabitants– shot up to 30.37.
With these numbers, as usual, Murcia once again climbed into the ‘ranking’ of the territories with the highest judicial activity. With 30.7 cases per thousand inhabitants, the Region was the fifth autonomous community with the highest litigation, only surpassed by the Canary Islands (37.3), Andalusia (32.6), the Balearic Islands (31.9) and Madrid (30.7 ). The pressure in the community is light years away from territories such as the Basque Country (21.3), La Rioja (21.8) or Extremadura (23.2). At the national level, according to the Council’s analysis, the ratio is 29.8 cases.
Although the resolution increased by 10.8%, more than 126,000 cases remain in court pending a response.
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