On July 1, 315 Courts of Instance (TI) will come into operation, belonging to the first phase of the implementation of the Law on Efficiency of the Public Justice Service, approved by the General Courts last January. This organizational transformation promoted by the Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts marks the beginning of the greatest structural reform of Justice in decades.
In this Phase I, 236 Courts of Instance are activated in autonomous communities with transferred competences in the field of justice and 79 in the territory managed by the Ministry, which represents 100% of those foreseen, thus complying with the provisions of the Law. During the year, two other phases will be completed: 16 new courts on October 1 and 100 additional courts on December 31, reaching 431 Courts of Instance throughout the national territory.
Each Court of Instance will also have a new model of Judicial Office, which will centralize common services, allowing optimal use of available resources. The experience of this new model of Judicial Office in a court in Badajoz has shown an improvement in trial resolution times, reducing pending cases by more than 40% and increasing the execution of resolutions by 70%.
On July 1, there will also be 4,818 Justice Offices in the Municipality, in the judicial parties that are part of this first phase. These offices will make it possible to bring the justice system closer to all citizens, even in localities without a judicial seat, facilitating procedures such as obtaining judicial documentation, presenting writings, caring for victims or connecting by videoconference with courts. This is a new model of decentralized and digital care, which guarantees equal access to the public justice service.
Breakdown in Navarre
Navarre launches in this first phase 4 Courts of Instance, one for each judicial party. With regard to the Offices of Justice in the Municipality, a total of 182 are in operation, corresponding to the judicial parties of this first phase.
More flexible structure, more responsiveness and greater savings
The new judicial structure transforms 3,900 single-person courts into 431 Courts of Instance organized by specialized jurisdictions and sections, which allows better management of human resources, greater procedural agility, more responsiveness to increases in workload and savings for public coffers. This allows, for example, that instead of having to create a new court with its seat and full staff, it will be enough to incorporate new judicial seats within an existing Court of Instance, which reduces the cost for each new judge's seat from 400,000 to 86,000 euros.
In total, the autonomous communities with transferred competences will achieve a cumulative saving of 290 million euros in the next ten years. To facilitate this transformation, the Ministry has transferred more than 325 million euros from European funds, in addition to 25 million euros for technological solutions.
Reinforcement in violence against women
The Ministry has also approved the creation of 50 new posts for judges and 42 specialized prosecutors to strengthen the Sections on Violence against Women, which will be integrated into the Courts of Instance and will assume all crimes of sexual violence since October, thus complying with the Istanbul Convention. In addition, three new sections specializing in violence against children and adolescents are created in Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga.