Measure 2.1.2

Measure 2.1.2

“Development, discussion and approval of the Civil Procedure Code necessary amendments package”.

This measure envisages the steps to be taken by the Ministry of Justice to amend the Civil Procedure Code in order to facilitate, assist and promote the effective implementation of some principles required by this code, but also by the justice system in general and related with transparency, access to court and judicial efficiency.

This measure is necessary to be implemented in compliance with Outcome 2.1 as the law is the first limitation of the operation in practice of these principles. Thus, the provisions related to notifications, deadlines for filing claims, deadlines for appeals, conditions for filing lawsuits, interim decisions during the trial, cases of conflicts of jurisdiction, the means available to the court against abusive dispositions of the parties, provisions regarding court fees, relations with third parties to the process, such as defense counsel, etc., directly affect the effectiveness of courts, increase access to them and their operation in terms of full transparency to the court user.

For the implementation of this measure, it is foreseen that the action will be completed within 2023 and, then, within 2025, it will be analyzed how effective the interventions were. It would be more realistic to set the end of 2025 as the deadline for the implementation of this measure, as the effects that will produce the last changes of the CPC that entered into force in May 2021, which aimed at increasing the effectiveness of courts at all levels, but on the other hand, also affected the principle of adversarial proceedings before the court, allowing more cases where the court conducts the process in the deliberation room, without the presence of the parties. A reasonable period of time, at least two years from the moment of their entry into force, is necessary to start the analysis on these changes, while the analysis of new proposals may be ready by the end of 2025.

Conclusion: This measure is necessary to be implemented in compliance with the Outcome, but the deadline set for the implementation of the measure should have been longer. This is related to the amendments to the CPC that entered into force in May 2021. Insufficient time to analyze the impact of the new law, and further to reach conclusions, risks making this measure unrealistic and ineffective.