When justice takes time to arrive – claim for compensation from the State for slow judicial proceedings in Spain

Justice is not justice if it arrives late, as the saying goes. We have learned of a recent ruling that put some sanity to the delay of the courts, issued by the Spanish Constitutional Court inits judgment of 04 November 2024.

The ruling clarified the situation of those affected by delays in the court system and their compensation when an appeal for “amparo” (protection) was filed due to the three-year delay for the holding of the trial in a social proceeding. (The lawsuit for social security benefits was filed in May 2022, with an indication in October 2025). The Labour Court of Sevilla explained the impossibility of bringing forward the hearing due to structural reasons and the saturation of the courts.

The Constitutional Court determined whether the right to a trial without undue delay, derived from art. 24.2 of the Constitution, had been violated by setting a hearing for a procedure in the social order with a delay of three years, caused by structural problems and the large number of lawsuits before the courts.

In line with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), undue delays are not only an infringement of procedural deadlines or excessive duration, but are the result of the complexity of the litigation, the ordinary time limits of litigation of the same type, the interest at stake of the applicant for protection, the applicant’s procedural conduct, and the conduct of the authorities.

With respect to the ordinary margins of delay, constitutional jurisprudence acknowledges the existence of undue delays when there is about two years between the filing date of the application and the date of the hearing. The delay must be justified on structural grounds and must not be directly attributable to the judicial body.

In 2023, the average resolution times for cases equivalent to that of the appellant in this case was eleven months. Three years is excessive even considering the lasting impact of accumulated delays incurred during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The applicant's claim is for recognition of an active insertion income benefit (intended for people with special difficulties in entering the labour market), and it is a claim with a great impact on the appellant's life. The hearing delay is not justified by the permanent overload of work at the courts, nor by the lack of means to resolve the process within a reasonable timeframe, since the citizen is oblivious to these circumstances.

Faced with the abnormal functioning of the administration of justice in this case, the Constitutional Court concluded the right to be compensated resulting from Article 121 of the Constitution is not a right that can be invoked in the way of constitutional protection, being able to resort to the ordinary jurisdiction directly.

This decision will increase actions for compensation for damages caused by the slowness of judicial processes, but the period of time will have to be reviewed on a case by case basis.

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Miguel Ángel, a law graduate from the University of Malaga with a dual Master’s degree in Advocacy and Business Law from Garrigues Study Centre, specialises in commercial and tax law. Awarded for his work on insolvency law and AI, he collaborates with La Ley, a prestigious legal journal.