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Citizens may now grant powers of attorney to act in legal proceedings free of charge, and without having to contract a notary.

The Judicial Office, which was inaugurated last week, will enable citizens to bring actions for debts of up to 250,000 euros through fast track proceedings.

Forget about going to the notary’s in order to grant a power of attorney when taking legal action. As from now you can grant a power of attorney to act in legal proceedings free of charge before the judicial notary public. This is one of the many improvements to the legal system that citizens can take advantage of as of yesterday, when the procedural law reform came into force and created the new Judicial Office. Nor is this the only reform. The justice system is starting to change.

The changes to the judicial system, which came into force last week, mainly affect the division of functions between judges and court clerks. The latter will perform all the tasks that do not strictly fall within the remit of the judges in order to reduce the judges´ workload and enable them to devote more time to issuing sentences. As from now court clerks may call witnesses, impose court costs, decide whether a claim should be allowed to proceed etc.

According to the Ministry for Justice, this change will not affect the rights of citizens but will instead speed up judicial administration and improve the quality of the public services that it provides.

For the time being however, citizens may not find that legal proceedings are much quicker. «Although some of the changes, such as the power of attorney to act in legal proceedings, have been implemented immediately, we will have to wait for the common procedural services to come into force before citizens can enjoy a judicial administration that operates using quality, efficiency, and rationalisation criteria in the provision of services », explained Javier Luis Parra, Chief Court Clerk of the High Court of Murcia (TSJ) last week. According to Juan Martínez Moya, President of the High Court of Murcia, the second stage of the reform will not be implemented until October of this year.

However a wide variety of reforms to the judicial system will be implemented before this date, including some which citizens will be able to use immediately.

One of these reforms increases the amount that can be claimed in small debts proceedings from 30,000 euros to 250,000 euros. As a result, citizens will be able to claim for debts up to this amount through very easy legal procedures. As Javier Parra explained « This type of proceedings make up the majority of civil actions, and increasing the amount that can be claimed greatly increases the scope of the proceedings, and therefore significantly enhances the legal system’s capacity to resolve this type of claim ».

Furthermore, the regulations regulating judicial auctions have been amended in order to establish an electronic bidding system, to be managed by the court clerk, provided that it is technologically feasible. This will allow bidders to participate in judicial auctions over the Internet without having to be physically present in the law court where the auction is taking place. This measure improves the justice system, «leading to greater transparency and publicity, and will ensure that better prices are obtained, while practices such as two people entering into a pact that can damage a third party will be prevented ». As remarked above, reforms that improve the justice system and prepare it for the future.

Credit: www.spainsolicitors.com

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