Alternative Dispute Resolutions in Spanish current law

Abstract

The appearance on the legal scene of Organic Law 1/2025, of 2 January, on measures for the efficiency of the Public Justice Service (LOSPJ), with its requirement to resort to appropriate means of non-judicial dispute resolution (ADR), as a procedural requirement in the civil jurisdictional order, together with the previous legislative proliferation in the area of ADR, justifies this publication. The purpose of this study is to put forward orderly the various out-of-court mechanisms available to individuals to comply with this new requirement, or to resolve their disputes without going to court. The latter is useful when it comes to small consumer claims, or when identical cases already have a well-known jurisprudential solution in the field of consumer law. For this reason, the legislator had already taken care to provide consumers with specific means of out-of-court dispute resolution, sometimes even distinguished by sector (as in the case of claims for financial products, or against airlines). An analysis and synthesis of the various applicable texts makes it possible to outline the ADR available to citizens and, in particular, to consumers. Many professionals (lawyers, justices of the peace, justice administration lawyers, notaries, land registrars, arbitrators, mediators, among others), are called upon to participate with them in these ADRs, thus contributing to lightening the burden on the courts.