Por Redaccion 
Andalucía will have a Strategic Justice Plan. For the first time since assuming its responsibilities in the field 28 years ago, a roadmap will be established that will set out the necessary actions in the areas of infrastructure, digitalization, personnel, humanization of citizen service, and sustainability. A plan that will be designed «By everyone» Those who work in «one of the great public services required by democracy» instead of taking measures through «plots and isolated actions». To this end, the Ministry of Justice, local administration, and public function gathered a hundred professionals from all fields who worked together in different groups to discuss, analyze, and gather proposals that will be part of the document.
The purpose is to Create a justice model for Andalusia according to the 21st century, agile and effective to strengthen a leading Andalusian, because the key to economic development is to ensure legal certainty. To achieve this, the expected overall investment will exceed two billion euros in the coming years. The starting point is the initial situation diagnosis carried out by the Ministry of Justice, local administration, and public function analyzing quantitative and qualitative data from official statistics, on-site visits to 85 judicial sections and 156 offices in Andalusia, and surveys conducted for different legal operators.
To complete this diagnosis and identify the priority needs, the ministry organized some Participatory Conference with judges, prosecutors, LAJs, officials, criminals, unions, professional associations, and support for justice advocates (psychologists, social workers…) who are familiar with those working in the western courts of Andalusia in Seville and on Thursday and Friday, in Granada, the professionals of the Eastern Provinces.
During the opening, the councilor José Antonio Nieto explained that the communities where the Justice Service is the best are those that have a planning that, in Andalusia, was never done despite having the powers transferred since 1997. He emphasized the «complexity» involved in managing justice from the administration «due to the number of legal operators interacting and needing to be a perfect team for the service to work». Operators who work together but depend on different administrations.
In this sense, the Board of Directors acts as Administration of Provisions responsible for ensuring the material and human resources of the judicial bodies whose creation depends on the state, led by judges appointed by the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and coordinated by Lawyers for the Administration of Justice (LAJ) who depend on the central government. Prosecutors, as well as lawyers, attorneys, social workers, and other liberal professionals.
Regarding the nephew, «We cannot work in plots and in isolation,» he urged participants to take advantage of these days to «talk about everyone, not just about each one» and not forget that the ultimate goal is to Improve the service offered to citizens with agreed and planned measures, allowing «Andalusia to have a better judicial administration in 2030 than in 2022.»
More than 2,000 million euros
In this regard, he announced that the council will mobilize more than 2,000 million euros at this time, «An unprecedented investment in justice». All this in a plan that will have five main axes of action.
The first one is 2023-2030 Judicial Infrastructure Plan presented last year, which aims to complete the network of justice cities in the eight capitals and actions on 100% of the judicial sections to end the current dispersion and reduce the current headquarters from 156 to 91.
The second is a Digitalization Plan transitioning from paper justice to data justice, which also started with the implementation of the new @adriano procedural management system in all courts and will continue with the full implementation of the electronic judicial file. Nieto mentioned that as an example, last year, Andalusian courts spent over 8 million euros on paper, almost the investment made for the construction of the new judicial headquarters in Lucena (Córdoba). «We have tools to reduce this cost by almost 100%,» he said.
The third axis of work is Human Resources Management, which is the «key element» to improve efficiency. According to Nieto, this is one of the most complex aspects precisely because each of the agents working in court, with courts instead of single-person courts, common services, and officials who are not assigned to a specific body. In this regard, he stressed the need to balance respect for labor rights and professional development with efficiency and service quality.
Nieto emphasized that the fourth axis of work is Humanization of Justice with special attention to the most vulnerable. The councilor regretted that «they always get left out,» despite the ultimate goal being to assist citizens who, when they come to court, are in a complex situation. In this field, efforts were made for the removal of architectural and sensory barriers, but also for understanding, as well as the commitment to mediation as an alternative dispute resolution, based on agreement and dialogue against the excess of litigation.
Finally, he referred to the fifth axis to design A Sustainable Justice Model from an environmental perspective, reducing paper consumption and energy expenditures, with the installation of photovoltaic panels or sensors for automatic lighting and outside court lights. The goal is to reduce the current energy consumption cost by 60%, exceeding 10 million annually. «We could have saved another 6 million euros,» he added.
Nieto concluded by asking participants to «engage in a joint exercise to provide solutions» so that Andalusia becomes a legal leader in the complete transformation of the system, entering the realm of efficiency.
After the councilor’s intervention and the presentation of the diagnosis, the more than 90 professionals were divided into four different groups to analyze the current deficiencies of the different axes that will form the plan and make proposals. These will be analyzed in another four groups in which the different operators will present their opinions based on their competencies and fields of work in justice, but to «analyze the system from the perspective of providing a better service to the citizen and not just the specific problems of each sector.»