The autonomous community of the Canary Islands registered a litigation rate of 45.9 lawsuits per 1,000 inhabitants during the second quarter of this year, the highest in the State in the study period, according to official data from the General Council of the Judiciary released this Monday.
The report on the situation of the judicial bodies in the second semester of 2022 shows that the Archipelago continues to be the Spanish territory where people go to court the most. We must go back to the judicial statistics of six years ago, to 2016, to not find the Canary Islands at the head of the regions where there is the most litigation.
Last spring, the average litigation rate in Spain was 35.6 cases per 1,000 inhabitants, 10.3 points lower than that of the islands.
The territories that showed a higher litigation rate than the national average between April and June of this year were, according to official data, the Canary Islands (45.9), Andalusia (38.1), Asturias (37.3), Cantabria (37), Murcia (36.8), Catalonia (36.2), the Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community (35.7). The territories with the least amount of litigation were La Rioja (25.6), the Basque Country (27.7) and Navarra (27.6).
In addition to the Canary Islands being the community where there was the most litigation between April and June, the province of Las Palmas was also the one that showed the highest litigation rate in that period, 49.59 lawsuits per 1,000 inhabitants. Lugo was second (45.77) and Malaga third (45.74). In the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the litigation rate in the reference period was 38.3, which places it in the middle positions of the national table. The quietest province in terms of lawsuits was Lleida, with 21.73 per 1,000 inhabitants.
A 7.5% increase in pending lawsuits
In terms of absolute data, the 211 judicial bodies of the Canary Islands began the second quarter of 2022 with 165,165 cases in progress (5.8% more than in the same period of 2021), received 99,723 (1.4% less), resolved 101,893 (5% less) and left 161,560 pending at the end of the period, 7.5% more than in the spring of the previous year.
In the province of Las Palmas, the 110 judicial bodies of the four jurisdictions began the second quarter of 2022 with 79,974 cases in progress (4.3% more than in the same period of 2021), received 55,971 processes (2.5% less), resolved 56,923 cases (8.2% less) and left 78,659 in progress (9% more).
As for Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the 94 judicial bodies began the quarter with 77,597 cases in progress (6.2% more), received 39,846 (0.3% more), resolved 40,776 (1.7% less) and left 76,220 processes in progress at the end of June, 6.5% more.
Between April and June of this year, the pendency rate of the Canarian judicial bodies (quotient between the cases at the end of the period and those resolved during that period) was 1.59, the sixth lowest in Spain (the rate is more positive the lower it is); the resolution rate (quotient between the cases resolved and those entered; better the higher it is) was 1.02, the third best in Spain together with Extremadura, after Madrid and the Basque Country, and the congestion rate (quotient where the numerator is formed by the sum of the pending cases at the beginning of the period and those registered in that period and the denominator is the cases resolved in said period, better the lower it is) was 2.60, the sixth lowest in the country.