After three years protected by a restraining order and awaiting trial, the same morning that it was finally to be held, the hearing of a victim of sexist violence was suspended. Like yours, there are thousands of cases affected by the strike of the lawyers of the administration of Justice.

Since they began their indefinite strike on January 24, the lawyers of the Justice administration estimate that around 250,000 trials and hearings have already been suspended, there are more than 350,000 lawsuits pending distribution and almost 1,000 million euros are blocked in the consignment accounts of the courts.
Traffic jam in the courts
This year’s hearing schedule was already very full before the strike; there are indications of trials for 2024 and even for 2025, especially in the social courts, explains the person in charge of Defense of the Legal Profession of the Madrid College, Javier Mata.

Precisely the dean of Madrid’s Lawyers, Eugenio Ribón, has sent a letter this week to the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, in which he estimates that 35% of the signs have been suspended in Madrid as a result of the strike.

And in some courts, such as commercial courts, the paralysis on certain days becomes absolute, points out the Madrid Bar Association.

For Mata, it will be “impossible” to fit the hundreds of thousands of suspended trials into “some agendas that were already complete before the strike.” And the longer this legal jam lasts, all the experts agree, the more difficult it will be to remedy it.

paralyzed processes
The suspensions of hearings are the most graphic proof of the stoppage in justice, but for Mata it is even more important that all kinds of actions that are part of the judicial process, such as lawsuits, payments or seizure requests, can be stopped.

“I can have a sentence won that entails the payment of an amount by the opposing party and, meanwhile, since it is not being executed, the opposing party may be making a tunic with its patrimony from its cape”, exemplifies the person in charge of Defense of the Madrid Lawyer’s Office.
Apart from the obvious damage that it entails for the parties involved, the lawyers emphasize that the stoppage of the processes also affects their work and their pocket; the smaller the law firm, says Mata.

“You have to press. I understand. But you are harming the defendant and the one who lives from this: issues that I am not going to resolve are issues that I am not going to collect,” reflects Adelina Planelles, an expert lawyer in civil and criminal law from a small office from the province of Alicante.

The most “bleeding” examples
One of Planelles’ clients, whom she assisted during the 2020 confinement, has been pending trial since then, protected by a restraining order from her abuser. On the morning of February 7, when the hearing was finally going to take place, it was suspended without a new date being set, as is happening in the vast majority of cases.

The member of the Commission for Relations with the Administration of Justice of the Barcelona Bar Association, Fernando García, also regrets the suspension of a trial for a traffic accident, in a process that has already accumulated five years of processing, for which They had mobilized the three parties in dispute, four experts and several witnesses, including local police officers.

For his part, the person in charge of the Defense of the Madrid Legal Profession says that he has not yet received an answer about a collective dismissal from a bankrupt company: “I have some workers on the staff who cannot be paid nor can I terminate their contracts so that they can access to unemployment,” says Mata.

In addition to these cases that lawyers describe as “bleeding,” there are hundreds of unfinished divorces, unpaid alimony, and wasted trips from the other side of the world to testify in a trial that ends up being suspended minutes before its start.
Apart from the obvious damage it entails for the parties involved, the lawyers point out that the stoppage of the processes also affects their work and his pocket; the smaller the law firm, says Mata.

“You have to press. I understand. But you are harming the defendant and the one who lives from this: issues that I am not going to resolve are issues that I am not going to collect,” reflects Adelina Planelles, an expert lawyer in civil and criminal law from a small office from the province of Alicante.

The most “bleeding” examples
One of Planelles’ clients, whom she assisted during the 2020 confinement, has been pending trial since then, protected by a restraining order from her abuser. On the morning of February 7, when the hearing was finally to take place, it was suspended without a new date being set, as is happening in the vast majority of cases.

Also the member of the Commission for Relations with the Administration of Justice of the College of A

Lawyers of Barcelona, Fernando García, regrets the suspension of a trial for a traffic accident, in a process that has already accumulated five years of processing, for which the three parties in dispute, four experts and several witnesses, including local policemen.

For his part, the person in charge of the Defense of the Madrid Legal Profession says that he has not yet received an answer about a collective dismissal from a bankrupt company: “I have some workers on the staff who cannot be paid nor can I terminate their contracts so that they can access to unemployment,” says Mata.

In addition to these cases that lawyers describe as “bleeding,” there are hundreds of unfinished divorces, unpaid alimony, and wasted trips from the other side of the world to testify in a trial that ends up being suspended minutes before its start.