Judge Napoleón Estévez Lavandier highlighted that the new conformation of the SCJ reduced the number of files pending for ruling by the Civil Chamber from 11,654 to only 708.
Magistrate Napoleon Estevez Lavandier, judge of the First Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, stated that it is imperative for the Civil and Commercial justice system to undertake a major reform of the Appeal for Cassation, in order to make its objective faster and more sincere.
While speaking on the Present and Future of the Dominican Civil Cassation, during a conference at the Faculty of Juridical and Political Sciences of the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (UASD), Judge Estévez Lavandier said that the current Cassation recourse was adopted in 1908, whose current law is almost 70 years old.
He insisted that the only way to enter into the future of the Civil Cassation is through the renewal of said law, a modification that would benefit the courts that hear proceedings in Commercial, Labor, Real Estate, Contentious-Administrative and Contentious-Tax matters.
"It is time to reduce the formalities that frustrate the Court's cassation control, in order to ensure prompt and timely justice," said Justice Estevez.
He said that the Cassation bill currently before the National Congress was approved on November 15 of this year by the Senate of the Republic, and from there sent to the Chamber of Deputies.
He indicated that if the modifications proposed in the bill are achieved, the Court of Cassation, in exceptional cases, will be able to directly decide the processes in order to put an end to the cases, in order to ensure a prompt and sound administration of justice, which under the current regime cannot be done by the high court, which currently leads to an endless process with an inefficient system of cassation and multiple resubmissions.
He explained that it is necessary to eliminate, as a rule, the harmful suspensive effect conferred to Cassation, limiting it only to very particular cases, which would help to control the workload of the high court.
He added that the appeal has been used by litigants to delay proceedings.
When making a statistical sample of the cases of the First Chamber, taking into account that the Supreme Court of Justice has national jurisdiction, Estévez Lavandier pointed out that when the current conformation of the SCJ began, they found the Civil Chamber with 11,654 files, and that as of October 2022 it has only a general total of 708 cases pending rulings.
"And with more than 12 months in the Chamber, we only have 152 files pending judgment. In referral two and in matters of real estate seizure, there are only 15." At this time when the number of files is quite controlled and reduced, it is necessary to take advantage of this to renew the appeal," he said.
The conference was attended by magistrates Fran Soto, Samuel Arias Arzeno and Moisés Ferrer, judges of the SCJ; magistrate Ignacio Pascual Camacho, president of the Superior Electoral Tribunal; as well as officials of the Judicial Power and authorities of the UASD, headed by the dean of the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences of the university, Héctor Pereyra.
Also present were professors, lawyers, jurists and students of law and politics.
