Spain’s new Law about the citizen’s right to interact with courts and tribunals using new technologies

13 Jul Spain’s new Law about the citizen’s right to interact with courts and tribunals using new technologies

The recently enacted Law (Ley 18/2011, de 5 de julio) regulates the usage of new technologies within the Spanish Judicial administration. The main goals of this law are: first, to update the content of the constitutional citizen’s right to have a public judicial procedure without undue delays thanks to the agility in the field of communication such technologies allow; second, to broaden the general use of new technologies by the legal professionals (lawyers, attorneys…); third, to define the rules about the set of minimum requisites of interconnection, interoperation and security needed on the deployment of the different applications and systems used by the actors of the judicial world in order to guaranty the security on data transmissions and any other requisites the normative about legal procedure involves.

Amongst other rights, the new law regulates the one that from now on the citizens have to be informed through electronic systems about the situation of the procedures in which they are a party, and also the right of the legal professionals to correspond through such means with the Judicial administration.

Note: Emilio Pino, Lawyers, have spoken to the Ministry of Justice in Madrid and been informed that even though the system of communication this Law regulates is foreseen, it has yet to be implemented. We hope it is a matter of a reasonable small delay!