The Court of First Instance number 1 of Arrecife, specialized in general contracting conditions, registered a total of 504 lawsuits for abusive clauses of banks during 2018, according to Radio Lanzarote the lawyer of the Administration of Justice of this Court, Juan Emilio Arribas Higuera, who will be one of the speakers at the conference to be held at the UNED of Lanzarote starting this Thursday.
Arribas pointed out that since the specialization of certain Courts of First Instance took place in June 2017, including this one in Arrecife, as a result of the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding the floor clauses, there has been a "exponential increase" in the number of lawsuits.
"For example, in 2017, taking into account that the specialization took place in June and the first lawsuit as a specialized Court was filed on the 7th, we had a total entry of 321 procedures", the lawyer of the Administration of Justice specified, who stated that this meant "a fairly significant workload", given that the Court of First Instance number 1 of Arrecife "is exclusive, but not excluding", that is, it carries out other procedures apart from those related to the general conditions of contracting.
"And in 2018 we continue in the same line. With the entire year already specialized, 504 procedures were filed", Juan Emilio Arribas pointed out, who nevertheless indicated that, so far in 2019, there has been a decrease in the number of lawsuits, although, yes, "very slight". "About 60 procedures are entering per month more or less", the lawyer of the Administration of Justice detailed.
Percentage of judgments in favor of clients and resolution time
Regarding the percentage of judgments in favor of clients, according to the figures provided by Juan Emilio Arribas, it would be 96%. And, he pointed out that, according to the latest statistics that were made in 2018, the Court of First Instance number 1 of Arrecife issued a total of 206 judgments for abusive clauses in the last quarter of this year, of which 199 were estimative and only seven dismissive. "And basically that line is maintained. The majority of judgments are estimative, that is, favorable to citizens", he stated.
Regarding the resolution time of the procedures, the lawyer of the Administration of Justice stated that it is "about a few months" from when the lawsuit is filed until the judgment is issued. "But each procedure is different", Juan Emilio Arribas specified, pointing out that some may take less or more, depending on whether they arrive already "directly to be admitted for processing" or if "they have some defect".
However, in this regard, he highlighted that in one of the latest judgments issued by the Court of First Instance number 1 of Arrecife, it only took five and a half months. "It was issued on March 14, 2019 and the procedure was filed in the Court on October 1, 2018", the lawyer of the Administration of Justice emphasized, who wanted to recognize the work of the "magnificent professionals" of the Court.
Need for more staff: "Some more civil servant would be good for us"
However, Juan Emilio Arribas also recognized that "some more civil servant would be very good" in the Court. "Because we would really need it, since right now, apart from the presiding judge, we have two judges on assignment, but there are only two civil servants working on floor clauses", he indicated.
Finally, while the president of the Fourth Section of the Provincial Court of Las Palmas and also a speaker at the conference to be held at the UNED, Juan José Cobo Plana, has been "very critical" of the specialization of the Courts carried out by the General Council of the Judiciary, Arribas stated that "perhaps it was necessary" because he believes that, although it has meant a greater workload for the specialized Courts, "it has prevented the rest of the instances from collapsing".
"But I don't know if it was done correctly", the lawyer of the Administration of Justice pointed out, who believes that they could have opted "more for mediation, for conciliation even in the judicial field" or for "applying techniques that are applied in other jurisdictions such as the contentious one such as the test lawsuit". "But they opted for specialization and we try at least that the citizen sees their demands satisfied as soon as possible", he concluded.
Specifically, in the Conference on general contracting conditions, abusive clauses and transparency control to be held at the UNED this Thursday and Friday, March 21 and 22, Juan Emilio Arribas will give a presentation entitled 'Mass litigation: technical-procedural problems', in addition to participating in two debates with the rest of the speakers.
