The judicial bodies of the autonomous community of the Canary Islands registered during the first quarter of 2024, in the four jurisdictional orders (civil, criminal, contentious-administrative and social), a total of 111,951 cases, 10.8% more than in the same period of the previous year. They left an accumulated 216,370 litigations pending resolution (13.4% more than in the first quarter of 2023) and resolved 106,470 litigations (24.8% more than in the winter of 2023).
According to data released this Wednesday by the Statistics Service of the General Council of the Judiciary, the Canary Islands was again in the first quarter of 2024 -as it had been in the previous four years- the territory of the State where the most litigation took place: 49.96 lawsuits per 1,000 inhabitants, 9.29 more than the State average (40.67) and 5.94 more than the second in the ranking, the community of Madrid, which computed 44.02 litigations per 1,000 inhabitants.
In the area of civil jurisdiction, the judicial offices of the Islands registered between January and March 2024 a total of 51,147 cases (13.1% more than in the winter of the previous year), resolved 46,838 (38% more) and left pending resolution as of December 31 an accumulated 138,502, 17.8% more than at the end of March 2023.
In the criminal order, 48,694 new cases were computed (5.4% more than the previous year), 48,493 were resolved (8.5% more) and 46,612 cases remained pending resolution at the end of the year, 5.4% more than in the same period of 2023.
In the contentious-administrative jurisdiction, 4,095 proceedings were opened (111.6% more than in the first quarter of 2023), 2,947 were resolved (72.4% more) and 9,557 remained pending (27.8% more).
In the social order, the judicial bodies of the Archipelago initiated between January and March of this year 8,015 processes (4.6% more), resolved 8,192 (65% more than the previous year) and left 22,099 pending at the end of the year, 0.8% more than in the previous year.
Litigation rate
The data collected by the judicial bodies of the Islands indicate that in the first quarter of this year 25,618 judgments were issued in the Islands (37.67% more than in the first quarter of the previous year), an average of 121.41 per judicial body; 58,859 orders (17.5% more than in 2023), an average of 278.95.25 per body, and 24,961 decrees, 118.3 per judicial body.
13,690 executions of judgments were registered, 17,308 were resolved, and 160,451 remained pending at the end of the year.
Between January and March of this year, the island judicial bodies registered a pendency rate (quotient between pending matters at the end of the period and those resolved in that period; the lower the better) of 2.03, the seventh lowest in Spain. The national average was 2.18.
The resolution rate (quotient between matters resolved and entered in a period; the higher the better) of the Canary Islands in the first quarter of 2024 was 0.95, the same as the national average. In the ranking of communities, it shares the fifth highest position with Cantabria.
Regarding the congestion rate (quotient where the numerator is formed by the sum of the matters pending at the beginning of the period and those registered in that period, and the denominator is the matters resolved in that period; the lower the better), that of the Canary Islands was 3.04, the seventh highest in the country, 0.13 tenths below the national average (3.17).
National data
Regarding the data for the entire national territory, the Spanish judicial bodies registered during the first quarter of 2024 a total of 1,980,482 cases, 20.8% more than a year ago. All jurisdictions experienced an interannual increase, but the most significant were those of the Civil order, with 37.8% more newly entered cases, and the Social order, where it was 28.1 percent. The increase in the resolution of cases, which also occurred in all jurisdictions, stood at 19.5 percent.
The significant increase in both the entry and resolution of cases is related to the strike that the lawyers of the Administration of Justice maintained from January 23 to March 28, 2023 and which was reflected in a significant decrease in the activity of the judicial bodies in that period of last year. All these data are included in the statistical report on the Situation of the judicial bodies in the first quarter of 2024, made public today by the Statistics Service of the General Council of the Judiciary.
During the first quarter of this year, a total of 1,980,482 cases were entered in all the judicial bodies throughout Spain, 20.8 percent more than in the same quarter of 2023. Between last January and March, the Spanish courts resolved 1,876,708 cases, 19.5% more than a year ago; the cases that remained pending at the end of the quarter amounted to 4,087,741, which has meant an interannual increase of 17.9 percent.
In the Civil jurisdiction, 922,679 new cases were registered, with an increase of 37.8%; 816,586 were resolved, 28.7% more, and 2,380,798 remained pending, 22.2% more than at the end of the first quarter of 2023.
The Criminal jurisdiction was the one that showed a more moderate increase in entry by registering 865,279 new cases, 6.6% more than a year earlier. 879,706 cases were resolved, 12.3% more, and 1,040,922 remained pending, 12.3% more.
The increase in the entry of cases in the Contentious-Administrative jurisdiction reached 7.4 percent, with a total of 53,510 new cases registered in the analyzed period. The cases resolved were 57,838, 6.9% more than the previous year and those that remained pending, 224,882, which has meant an increase of 4.1 percent.
In the Social jurisdiction, 138,987 cases were registered, 28.1% more than between January and March 2023. 122,550 cases were resolved, 25.4 percent more, and 441,099 cases remained in process, 17.3% more.
Projection for the year 2024
Based on the available quarterly historical series, reaching in this case the first quarter of 2024, the CGPJ has made a forecast for the year 2024 as a whole.
