Some reflections on the situation of the social process after Organic Law 1/2025, january 2, on measures regarding the efficiency of the public justice service

Abstract

At present, the Social Order of Jurisdiction suffers from a situation that is far from ideal, with delays that are excessive and unjustified, with the risk of ending up violating the fundamental right to effective judicial protection, as the highest interpreter of the Constitution has had to declare.
Faced with this situation, and together with other possible solutions (notably, the greater provision of material and human resources), the legislator has chosen to carry out a series of reforms of a certain depth to the procedural regulations. To the one already carried out through Royal Decree-Law 6/2023, of December 19, another rather profound one has recently been added (especially with regard to the restructuring of the structure of the Spanish courts, with the creation of the courts of instance, from which the legislator expects so much, perhaps, as in that fable of the birth of the mountains, with excessive expectation) operated through Organic Law 1/2025, of January 2, on measures regarding the efficiency of the Public Service of Justice.
Specifically, this essay will attempt to outline the main new developments concerning the Social Order of Jurisdiction, where, in addition to the notable influence that the reform will have in general - with the disappearance as such of the Social Courts, and the corresponding creation of the social sections within the courts of instance - , it is worth noting a good handful of specific measures incorporated into the text of the LRJS and aimed at achieving greater procedural efficiency, among which stands out the possibility of separating the acts of procedural conciliation and trial on different days, the need to provide prior documentary and expert evidence that the parties are going to use and the establishment of a new requirement of “objective cassational interest” to achieve the viability of the unification of doctrine.
The speech closes with some reflections, general ideas that are beginning to be a siren song that is becoming widespread in different areas and forums, on how a better functioning of the social order could be achieved, from the provision of greater material and human resources, to the improvement of extrajudicial mechanisms for the resolution of controversies or, finally, to the need to resort to deterrent elements of excessive litigation, such as the imposition of costs or the more frequent use of fines for recklessness or bad faith.