The Constitutional Court has approved in the plenary session of the government that has held this week a shock plan that allows expediting the processing of the 8,000 appeals for protection that it receives on average annually. To this end, complaints of violation of fundamental rights -from which the annulment of the sentences imposed- can be derived- will have to meet a series of requirements. From the outset, to be admitted for processing, the appeals will be required to be submitted through the electronic headquarters of the court using a form that explains “clearly and precisely the violations of fundamental rights” that are alleged, as well as the “special constitutional significance ” of the case.
The court wanted to emphasize that these measures are not intended to reduce the chances of citizens applying for amparo to the guarantee body, but to try to respond to them in a shorter period of time. Now it can take months, or even years, until it is decided whether an appeal is admitted for processing or rejected outright, and it can also take years until a judgment is issued on the merits of the case, in the case of those that pass the first filter. To avoid negative interpretations of the measures taken, the Constitutional Court has kept the Bar Associations and Solicitors informed of its projects. The fact, in any case, is that for years the court has been rejecting most of these types of challenges, considering that they lack constitutional relevance. Of the 8,000 that are submitted annually, only around 200 are accepted for processing.
Two months for admission
The problem for the court and for those concerned by the resources is that with the current system there are large bottlenecks in the processing of challenges. Now it is intended that they know in two months if their challenge is admitted for processing, and in a year if the substantive issue they raise really involved a violation of rights, and they are granted protection. Given that the word form ―as a prerequisite for filing appeals― can give rise to suspicions about a hypothetical risk of bureaucratization of the first decisions on amparo applications, the court wanted to underline that the measure that it has put in place is not adopts to facilitate rejections. “The form – affirms the Constitutional in an official statement – does not replace the demand.”
The guarantee body emphasizes that said form “has two purposes: to make it easier for the appellants not to incur defects when drafting the claim and to help the court identify the essential aspects of the appeal.” Through this procedure -the presentation continues-, the Constitutional “follows the line of other jurisdictional bodies that have been successfully using this formula, such as the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Justice of the European Union and its General Court, the Court Supreme Court of the United States or, in Spain, the Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Supreme Court”. The statement also highlights that “the memory of the Constitutional Court of the year 2022 shows that 53% of the lawsuits suffer from an absolute lack or insufficient justification of this special constitutional significance and that, as a whole, they were inadmissible due to procedural defects, 76% of the amparo appeals filed. This situation is what has led the Constitutional Court to take this measure.”
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