The judicial bodies of the Canary Islands registered during 2024, in the four jurisdictional orders (civil, criminal, contentious-administrative and social), a total of 475,761 cases, 13.9% more than in the previous year.
They left 248,641 litigations pending resolution (17.7% more than in 2023) and resolved 440,489 (15.8% more than in the previous year). The increase in resolution has been very notable if compared with that registered between 2022 and 2023, which was 1.3%.
In 2024, the Canary Islands was again - as it had been in the previous five years - the territory of the State where there was the most litigation: 212.51 lawsuits per 1,000 inhabitants, 52.1 more than the State average (160.41) and 38.62 more than the second in the ranking, Madrid, which computed 178.39 litigations per 1,000 inhabitants.
In the area of civil jurisdiction, the judicial offices of the Islands registered a total of 219,059 cases during 2024 (16% more than in the previous year), resolved 195,829 (22% more than in 2023) and left 158,943 pending resolution as of December 31, 18.4% more than at the end of 2023.
In the criminal order, 203,803 new cases were computed (7.3% more than the previous year), 200,809 were resolved (8.4% more) and 49,667 cases remained pending resolution at the end of the year, 7.1% more than in 2023.
In the contentious-administrative jurisdiction, 19,970 proceedings were opened (115.3% more than in 2023; a very significant figure, when the previous year the increase had been 8%), 12,330 were resolved (44.7% more, when the previous year it had been 8.9% less) and 16,226 remained pending (85% more than in 2023).
From the Governing Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, this sensitive increase in litigation in the contentious-administrative jurisdiction is linked to the increase in irregular immigration, especially in the western province, where throughout last year and so far this year - and precisely at the request of the aforementioned governing body - the General Council of the Judiciary approved the application of reinforcement measures to address the avalanche of appeals against expulsion orders from the national territory.
In the social order, the judicial bodies of the Archipelago initiated 32,929 processes (11.2% more than in 2023), resolved 31,521 cases (20.7% more than the previous year) and left 23,768 cases pending at the end of the year, 6.6% more than in the previous year.
The data collected by the judicial bodies of the Islands indicate that last year a total of 107,143 judgments were issued in the four jurisdictions (23.7% more than the previous year), an average of 489.24 per judicial body; 248,047 orders (14.6% more than in 2023), an average of 1,132.63 per body, and 97,399 decrees, 444, 74 per judicial body.
58,700 executions of judgments were registered, 73,407 were resolved, and 166,099 remained pending at the end of the year.
Comparative statistics between autonomous communities on 2024 indicate that the pendency rate (quotient between the pending matters at the end of the period and those resolved in that period; a territory is in a better situation the lower its pendency rate) of the Canarian judicial bodies was 0.56 last year, the seventh lowest in Spain (the national average was 0.62); the resolution rate (quotient between the matters resolved and those entered; the better the higher the rate) was 0.93, the fifth lowest in the country, on par with the national average, and 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; the better the lower it is) was 1.56, the seventh lowest in Spain.
According to the official data of the CGPJ, the province of Las Palmas was during the past year the one that registered the highest rate of litigation in Spain, with 220.93 cases per 1,000 inhabitants (60.65 cases above the national average). That of Santa Cruz de Tenerife was much lower, at 180.75 cases per 1,000 inhabitants (20.34 above the national average.
National data
At the national level, the statistics of the General Council of the Judiciary allow us to affirm that the judicial bodies throughout Spain received 11.4% more new cases during 2024 than the previous year, with a total of 7,799,166 registered. The resolution capacity of the courts also grew and the total number of cases resolved (7,291,024) experienced an interannual increase of 13.2%. Despite this, the cases that remained pending on December 31 (4,518,944) increased by 13.7 percent.
The data on the activity of the judicial bodies during the past year are included in the report on the Situation of the judicial bodies, prepared by the Statistics Service and made public today by the General Council of the Judiciary, which shows how the number of new cases increased in all jurisdictional orders during 2024 and remained practically unchanged in the Contentious-Administrative.
In the Civil order, the judicial bodies registered 3,563,038 cases in 2024, which is equivalent to an increase of 19.4% compared to the previous year. This jurisdiction showed a high resolution capacity: the cases resolved totaled 3,153,239, 20% more than in 2023. Finally, the pendency grew by 18.3% with 2,688,606 cases pending.
In the Criminal jurisdiction, 3,499,906 cases were entered, with an interannual increase of 4.7%; 3,451,560 cases were resolved, 7.5% more than in 2023, and 1,124,015 cases remained pending, which represents an increase of 7.1% compared to the previous year.
In the Contentious-Administrative jurisdiction, the entry of 207,581 new cases barely varied, registering a decrease of 0.2%. The number of cases resolved did increase, by 5.9%, totaling 216,410. In this jurisdictional order, the pendency remained stable, with the 225,647 cases that remained pending at the end of the year being 0.6% less than in the previous year.
The entry of 528,533 new cases in the Social jurisdiction represented an increase of 14.1% compared to 2023. The number of cases resolved grew by 18.1% compared to the previous year, reaching 469,690. Those that remained pending at the end of the year were 480,652, 12.8% more.
The litigation rate in Spain as a whole in 2024 was 160.41 cases per 1,000 inhabitants.
The Autonomous Communities that showed a litigation rate higher than the national one were the Canary Islands (212.51), Madrid (178.39), Asturias (165.37), Andalusia (163), Murcia (162.29) and the Balearic Islands (162.12).