The president of the Fourth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas, specialized in general contracting conditions, has stated that his court is "absolutely collapsed." And, according to Judge Juan José Cobo Plana, the chamber has a number of cases "three times higher than two years ago," but without any increase in human resources. "We continue with the same magistrates," he said.
Cobo Plana will be one of the speakers at the Conference on general contracting conditions, abusive clauses, and transparency control to be held in Lanzarote this Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22, organized by the UNED, and has been "very critical" on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero with the decision that the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) made in 2017 to specialize Courts in matters of abusive clauses.
That decision was made in anticipation of an increase in litigation in this regard as a result of the judgment issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union in December 2016, obliging banks to return all amounts unduly charged for floor clauses. "The judgments we are receiving are from lawsuits filed a year and a half or two years ago, and no one has ever understood the creation of these specialized Courts, when the judges of first instance could have assumed this type of lawsuit," the magistrate pointed out.
And, according to Juan José Cobo Plana, all the Courts that specialized "collapsed immediately" and remain "absolutely collapsed." "Because now there are more judges on temporary assignment issuing judgments, but the civil servants are practically the same. And they come to us, who are the bottleneck, and we continue with the same magistrates as two years ago. So, by working very hard and appealing to everyone's effort, that's how it's being done, but things have not been done well in that sense," considers the president of the Fourth Section of the Audiencia.
A judge who marked a "milestone"
Juan José Cobo Plana was the magistrate who, while then in charge of the Court of First Instance Number 4 of Arrecife, annulled a mortgage foreclosure in 2013 for considering the default interest "abusive and usurious." That resolution represented a "milestone," as it was described by the then president of the Superior Court of Justice of the Canary Islands, Antonio Castro. And, in addition, the magistrate also ordered the nullity of the mortgage that guaranteed it and suspended the mortgage procedure.
"We realized that there were many abusive practices and they began to be eliminated," Cobo Plana pointed out in this regard, celebrating that from there a "awareness of everyone, of citizens and especially of the courts, in the sense that what was happening could not be allowed" was generated.
Lack of financial culture in society
However, the current president of the Fourth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas believes that there is a lack of financial culture at the social level. "We don't know anything and it's the daily routine," said Juan José Cobo Plana, who will give a presentation on general contracting conditions at the Conference that the UNED will hold this Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22.
Specifically, Cobo Plana's presentation will take place on Thursday, from 5:45 p.m. to 7:15 p.m., and in it the magistrate will explain the doctrine of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas and the latest judgments of the Supreme Court on general contracting conditions.
