Supreme Court of Justice overcomes historical backlog and speeds up decision times

During the meeting, it was shown in real time how the high court has transformed the management of judicial arrears through a model based on digitalization, efficiency, and transparency

Santo Domingo.- 90% of the cases in the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) are resolved in three, six and 12 months and the processing time was significantly reduced with the application of the new Cassation law, going from 707 to only 27 days.

The information was offered during the meeting “Justice and Media: Management Model and Results of the Supreme Court of Justice”, led by the presidents of the First and Second Chambers, Justiniano Montero Montero and Francisco Jerez Mena, respectively. While magistrate Francisco Ortega Polanco represented the Third Chamber of the high court. When making the presentation, the Secretary General of the SCJ, César García Lucas, reported that the SCJ currently has 4,273 cases pending judgment. Of these, the oldest date back to the year 2024 in civil and commercial matters, which has a total of 2,983 pending files. While, in terms of Land, it only has 377 cases pending, Criminal 353, Labor 266, Administrative Litigation 225 and Tax Litigation 69, all these cases correspond to the years 2025 and 2026. The response time is around six to 12 months in civil matters, three months and one day in criminal matters to decide extradition cases; while in relation to contentious tax, administrative, labor and land decisions, they are issued within six months. We recommend reading: Regarding transparency, the Judiciary has a control panel where inquiries can be made in the Judicial Observatory, breakdowns by chambers and subjects can be viewed, as well as active files. An important aspect highlighted is the interoperability with the Constitutional Court to digitally send the empowered files, generating proof of automatic remission.

New Management Model

These achievements have been made possible thanks to a new management model that includes the digital access portal, digital signature, electronic voting, the digital file, among other technological innovations.