Principle of orality in Cuban civil law

Summary

The combination of orality and writing, with a predominance of the former, in civil and family proceedings, decisively influences the legal consciousness of the population in these matters. Current trends in Civil Procedural Law are aimed at increasing the use of the Principle of Orality, due to the advantages it offers in terms of speed in litigation processing and the quality of the administration of justice.

The legal regulation of Orality in the Cuban civil and family process, although it has undergone important steps towards the hearing process, should continue to open up to the use of orality.

The Material or Substantive Law, fixes the rules of conduct, the birth and effects of the legal-patrimonial and personal relationships of individuals, but does not ensure the enjoyment of rights or the fulfillment of duties, does not determine how these should be carried out when citizens fail to comply with their obligations, nor does it protect the right and enforce its compliance. The means of making them effective takes on extraordinary prominence, and is none other than Civil Procedural Law.

The time that elapses between the violation and the reintegration of the right is in itself a damage to the subject of the right, the delay may cause irreparable damage or loss of other benefits; even, sometimes the non-observance of the forms produces the loss of the right, that is why, between the declaration of the right and the action, it is essential to simplify the long and complicated formalities.

“On the one hand, they want the forms to be few, simple, fast; it is wanted on the other hand, that they do not take anything away from the broad discussion of the reasons of the parties, the ideal is in the right balance of these two demands ”.

Special motivation for our investigations were the delays in the processing of civil and family processes, the effects that they produce on the parties and the incomplete knowledge of these matters by the citizens.

The research problem is: Is the use of orality in Cuban civil and family proceedings adequate to contribute to the quality of the administration of justice?

The hypotheses were based on:

Orality requires legal regulation that offers greater opportunities for its use.The regulation of the principle of Orality in Cuban civil and family processes is adequate, and its use should be increased by the subjects who intervene in the processing of processes for contribute to the quality of the administration of justice.

Through the methods used, we obtained the necessary information to respond to the research problem.

We were able to understand the characteristics of current law and identify its historical trends through the method of Historical-Legal Analysis; To establish the foundation and essence of legal phenomena and processes and review bibliographies, works, files and documents and reflect on them, we use the Theoretical-Legal Analysis method and to select the criteria for comparison and determine the regularities, particularities and identification of the tendencies of the legislative development we are helped by the methods of Legal-Comparative Analysis.

To reflect on the legal regulation of the object of research in current legislation, the methods of Legal-Exegetical Analysis served us with special meaning within it the grammatical, logical and historical.

We take advantage of the Empirical method in interviews with professors, judges, prosecutors and lawyers to find out their notions about orality and to what extent they use in judicial practice to contribute to the administration of justice. We exploit the statistical method to process the information and represent the results in percentage values.

We chose as population and sample 60% of the teachers, judges, prosecutors and lawyers who intervene in the processing of civil and family proceedings.

Necessary Considerations on Orality in Civil Process. Advantages and disadvantages of its use.

We must start from the fact that in the Roman sources, the words process and procedure do not appear and in the medieval canons the terms processus and I'll proceed, are equivalent and grammatically, the first is derived from the second, however, they have the same etymological root, I will proceed, but they don't mean the same; Modern proceduralists have been responsible for their distinction, due to the importance they have from the practical and theoretical perspectives.

According to the New Legal Encyclopedia, the process is conceived as the cause by means of which in Procedural Law the most important activity that corresponds to it is carried out, existing in all cases in which there is controversy and definition of rights, specified in the maximum act of the jurisdictional function, that is, the judicial sentence.

Fransisco Carnelitti, defines the process as the sum of acts that are carried out for the composition of the litigation.

For Montero Aroca, jurisdictional activity and process are the same thing, because when the courts act jurisdictionally, they always do so through the process; this is the only means by which they fulfill their function.

We are affiliated with the concept of Professor Grillo Longoria, who sees the civil process as the set of acts of the Court and the parties aimed at the investigation and resolution of civil and family matters through a method pre-established by law, in order to protect the legal system and the rights of individuals.

The acts of the court and the parties, even third parties, are aimed at the realization of the right and these acts, considered in their external and formal aspect, constitute the procedure.

The essence of procedural law is the process and the procedure is only one element of the process.

The civil process is governed by principles produced in the course of history, sometimes perfected and other times, preserved in their original version.

Chiovenda, when dealing with the subject, affirmed that the principle that all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation, that all citizens are equal before the law; that individual freedom cannot be limited except in cases determined by law and within the limits of the public interest, were the sources of some supreme principles of the modern process, such as the principle of equality of the parties, which Mancini called the principle legal process and that the same author calls the political principle, that is, of the maximum social guarantee of rights with the same individual sacrifice of freedom.

In the doctrine there is no coincidence in the classification of the technical principles that inform civil procedural norms, in this Chapter we will only make brief reference to those that in our opinion are more important for the speed of the civil process, they are:

Equality of the parties or equality in the debate or bilaterality of the audience or as the one that no one should be condemned without being heard and defeated in court: from the Austrian Civil Ordinance of 1895 the laws have tried to prevent inequalities from becoming in procedural inequalities. In socialist justice, the material truth is verified through the process and, at the same time, compliance with the legal system is guaranteed and it translates into equal rights, possibilities and burdens. Among its applications, because of its importance, we mean that the parties must be summoned for the hearings and appearances that take place in the process. Device, controversy or requested justice: In the Civil Procedure Law, the initiation, claim, provision of evidence,requests and notifications limiting the actions of the court to these requests (requested justice) and deciding only on their allegations and requests (principle of consistency), evidencing formal justice. The current trend is to achieve a balance between the actions of the court and the parties, always subordinating the latter to the decisions of the one who directs the process. Among its manifestations is the withdrawal and raid. The procedural impulse: Doctrinally it is the force that sets the process in motion and makes it advance to the end. It can be at the request of a party or ex officio, the latter avoids procedural voids, and prints greater speed.It strengthens the function of the Court to reach the knowledge of the material truth, harmonizing with the preclusion of each procedure, which is an advantage over the old Civil Procedure Law. The withdrawal and the transaction prevent the Court from getting to the bottom of the knowledge of the facts, but in socialist society, both figures are conditioned to the subordination of individual interests to groups, leaving the Court empowered to continue the process as long as they are contrary to the social interest or rights of third parties. Other applications are the tests to better provide and the legitimation of third parties that demonstrate a legitimate interest, to resort like the parties. Preclusion: It is the loss, extinction or consummation of a procedural power. Prevents the process from dispersing, disintegrating,go back and interrupt indefinitely and is closely related to the procedural impulse ex officio. We reject the system called "Views Unit" because we consider that it undermines organization and procedural progress. For Chiovenda, the process must use preclusion to make possible the development of the procedural relationship until the final goal. We share the criterion of Professor Rafael Grillo Longoria, that it is a confirmatory principle of the process, orders or presses the acts of the parties and the court, as well as flexibility or attenuation, which in our law gives life, which is the power to have ex officio the practice of tests to better provide.It is the requirement that the judge has been in direct contact with the other people involved in the process and is closely linked in terms of the practice of evidence, conceiving that the judge who practices it is the one who pronounces the sentence. It supposes that the procedural acts must be developed in the smallest number of them and the proceedings close to each other allowing that the statements of word before the judge remain in his memory until sentencing. It constitutes the most notable characteristic of the oral process, avoids the dispersion of the procedural procedures, influences the brevity of the lawsuits compared to writing, which disperses the procedural acts in time.Economy: It refers both to the gratuitousness of the process and to the brevity of the proceedings with the greatest adherence to the Law.It is not contradictory to the principle of justice because the gratuitousness of justice and the brevity of terms and deadlines are a function of justice.Publicity: It is a necessary consequence of orality, the acts in public hearing can be witnessed by the parties who may intervene in them and the people as a spectator, so that they know the judicial activity, trust it and constitute at the same time a guarantee of it, due to the criticism and supervision that it allows. It is related to the educational function of judicial activity and influences the development of social legal consciousness and the realization of the law. Eventuality: It imposes on the parties the duty to present simultaneously all the allegations, exceptions and the evidence that correspond to an act or procedural stage, regardless of whether they are compatible or not.It is based on the principle of loyalty of the parties.

Orality and Writing:

In the civil process the written form predominates, but no process can be absolutely oral, nor exclusively written, almost always combining both forms. Traditionally, the dispute has centered on the way in which the parties provide the facts and formulate the claim.

The writing implies:

Mediation, that is, there is the possibility that the judge has not participated in the taking of the evidence and perceives it through writings, as well as the allegations of the parties, mediated by the Secretary. Dispersion and Preclusion, insofar as A series of time periods are established for each party to make the corresponding writing and communicate with the other party and if they do not do so, they lose the opportunity to do so. Deconcentration of procedural acts.

In the written procedure, everything must be recorded in detail in the file, the parties only address the judge in writing, so it is too rigid and formal, however, it facilitates the preservation of the proceedings by reducing the possibility of errors and can be useful for prepare the oral debate by providing information to the parties.

Orality presupposes the pre-eminence of the spoken word, over the written word, it allows the judge to capture in the strictly legal debate whoever is assisted by reason, it took place first in Greece, then in Roman Law in its first two proceedings, that of the Actions of Law (in iure and in iudicio) and the form, not so in the extraordinary in which the writing predominated.

Germanic Law was characterized by orality and publicity and in the feudal period it marked the distinction between the civil and criminal process and in the Middle Ages the two great procedural systems emerged, the Anglo-Saxon or Common Law and the today called French Roman, this the latter inspired by the Civil Procedure Law of 1855 based on writing, which was maintained by the Latin American countries, in which orality was excluded, except in Brazil and some Argentine provinces.

In 1957 the First Latin American Conference on Procedural Law was held in Montevideo where the Latin American Institute of Procedural Law was founded, in 1970 in Bogotá the Uniform Bases for the Reform of Civil and Criminal Legislation of Latin American Countries were approved and in 1988 in Rio de Janeiro the Drafts of the Civil Procedure Code for Ibero-America, with an orientation of oral process or process by hearing, which has served as the basis for procedural legislative reforms in several countries in the region.

Orality, according to Chiovenda, is the immediate relationship between the judges and the people whose statements they are called to appreciate. It also means a rational temporization of the written and of the word, with different means of expression of thought.

Orality is an accessible form of communication between the Court and other persons involved in the process and facilitates the correct appreciation of the evidence. It is not possible for the Judge not to hear the witnesses or the parties or confront their statements, only in the oral process or by hearing there are true concentration, immediacy and publicity, so orality implies not only the predominance of the verbal element but the prevalence of these principles.

There is no exclusively oral, but mixed, positive law regime, except for some rare case, such as the Valencia Water Court.

The mixed process contains a written phase (demand and answer), then one or two hearings (oral) and then with written appeals. The essential thing is communication between the judge and the parties, recognizing that within the procedure a means of communication as precise as writing cannot be neglected. What is rejected is the written and secret process, without the concentration and immediacy provided by the holding of the hearing of evidence and the oral debate.

According to Couture… "slow justice is not justice… excessive delay contradicts the essence of the jurisdictional function that has been established as a constitutional principle - obtaining a decision on the case within a reasonable period of time - since it is considered that excessive delay of the justice implies the violation of human rights of the defendants ”…

However, in rapid justice, due process guarantees should not be forgotten, taking place the essential procedures to guarantee the rights of the parties, the guarantee of due legal process is proclaimed where the parties are heard with the possibility of the contradictory and a deadline reasonable to offer and produce his proofs and put forward his defenses.

The principle of Orality cannot be understood simply as an oral discussion in the audience. For Chiovenda… ”the orality attenuated by the writings that prepare the debate, guarantees, on the contrary, an intrinsically better justice…..; it excites the spirit of the magistrate and the lawyer and makes it more clever, faster, more penetrating… "

As disadvantages of the oral process, we can cite that the lack of written action causes the Court of higher instance to have to reproduce them, the possibility of errors is greater due to the lack of written record of the actions and it is more expensive than the written process, which is prone to superficial and hasty sentences, to surprises because the parties are allowed until the last minute to modify and change their claims and requires a large increase in personnel in the courts, more judges but fewer officials, which represents a notable advance.

Among the advantages of orality are: less formality; faster; promotes simplicity; increase publicity of the process; by concentrating the actions, notifications, summons or other proceedings are reduced; It allows the direct relationship of the court and the parties, allowing the deepening of questions that raise doubts; the judge becomes the true protagonist and director of the process that, through the immediacy, captures in the taking of evidence whoever is rightly assisting him; incidents that are mostly resolved in the same hearing are suppressed; many more agreements and transactions are achieved that eliminate procedures; there are fewer resources.

It is not a question of comparing a bad written system with an ideal oral regime, but rather of finding the most favorable balance for speed, the guarantees of the parties and the quality of the administration of justice.

The hearing process is harmoniously complemented with writing, taking the advantages that each one possesses, orality is important in the practice of evidence, allegations and the ruling, while writing is useful to prepare the substantiation of the process (demand and answer). This process requires tax judges and lawyers, with a great capacity for analysis, experience and legal preparation.

Orality in Comparative Law. Actual trends.

We can see a strengthening of orality in the civil procedural norms of Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Uruguay, chosen because they received influences from Spanish and French law and are informed to a greater or lesser extent by the principles advocated by the Model Procedural Code for Ibero-America and we will base the analysis on the presence or not of orality in the different phases of the process and its manifestations.

The Colombian Procedural Law, in the Ordinary Process after the allegations phase, contains the orality in the Conciliation Hearing, Sanitation, Decision of Preliminary Exceptions and fixing of the points of the litigation, in it it is first a matter of achieving a conciliation between the parties, resolve the exceptions and set the facts to be proven. When, due to its complexity, it is necessary, the judge will indicate continuous and immediate dates for the hearings and proceedings to be carried out within the following forty days, once the term has expired, it will transfer for the common term of eight days to make allegations, once the process has elapsed it will be concluded for judgment.

It regulates an Abbreviated Process for certain matters, such as easements, injunctions to regain possession, rendering of accounts and others, in which the terms are reduced by half in the allegations phase and the evidence phase to twenty days, five for allegations and concluded for sentence.

It stands out in the predominance of Orality, the Summary Verbal Process that is conceived for matters such as nullity and divorce of civil marriage and separation of bodies or property when it is not by mutual consent, deprivation, suspension or restoration of parental authority, restitution of property sold in reserve agreement, declaration of extinction of an obligation or fulfillment of a suspensive condition, etc. The demand and the answer can be made orally before the Secretary who will leave a record or in writing, accompanying documents and other evidence.

The term to answer is ten days, at the hearing, it is reconciled, cleaned up, tests are taken, an expert opinion is rendered, the clarifications requested are immediately resolved or in another hearing within the tenth day, after the hearing the judge will hear each party for twenty minutes and will dictate sentence in it or in ten days and this date will be pronounced even when the parties or their attorneys do not attend and in that same hearing it will resolve the appeal if it is presented. The reform of the claim, counterclaim, accumulation of processes and the suspension of the process for reasons other than that agreed by the parties will be inadmissible.

In Bolivia, the Civil Procedure Code provides for a Summary Process with a great predominance of orality, similar to the Colombian Verbal Process and in the General part the rules to follow for the development of hearings are established and it should be noted that in terms of conciliation The judge can call the parties in any stage of the process, in which the State, the municipalities, is not a party. Charitable establishments, entities of public order and incapable of contracting, and just as new, is the prevention of a Conciliatory Hearing before the filing of the claim, which will have the value of res judicata.

The Peruvian adjective Law, within the contentious processes, with the stage of written allegations, conceives the Abridged and the Summarized with a Single Hearing in which all the questions are aired and as a significant aspect regulates, that in the absence of conciliation, the judge It can propose a formula that, if accepted by the parties, will proceed by setting the points of the debate, the relevance of the evidence, its practice, the lawyers are given the floor and a Sentence is issued on the spot.

In Ecuador, an ordinary process similar to the previous ones is established, which conceives the Hearing in the conclusive stage and regulates that the Secretary will establish that the hearing took place and who spoke. They also include the Summary Verbal Trial, mostly informed by verbal proceedings, at the Hearing the answer to the claim is aired, but not the reform or the counterclaim and if it were questions of strict law, a sentence will be issued in the same act. Any writing other than the claim or proof of this nature will not be accepted.

Orality in the Uruguayan Civil Process has progressively gained significant predominance, achieving with the Procedural Reform to reduce the time of justice, gaining a real, effective and efficient immediacy, with a sufficient number of judges, publicity and in the processes and hearings allowing interested persons to attend and learn, in situ, the way in which these are developed, direct contact of the court with the parties, witnesses and experts, the evidence is proposed with the demand, revitalizes the role of the judge and in a general sense, assumes the regulations of the Model Code for Latin America.

In the Spanish Civil Procedure Law of January 17, 2000, it stipulates two types of declarative trials, the ordinary trial and the verbal trial. In the first, the legations phase is written and then a Hearing is set, on the other hand, in the second, the word spoken in the claim prevails, if the defendant lets the term elapse without announcing his opposition or is based on a cause not understood, Estimated sentence is issued, if there is opposition, it is cited for the hearing. The publicity of the oral and novel actions is significant that the resolutions except the sentences are dictated in the same act of orality and the ruling if all are present and express the decision not to appeal, the Court will declare the firmness in the same act.

We can conclude that the codes of procedure analyzed contemplate a first written phase, with a conciliatory and sanitizing audience that is where orality prevails, this being the current Ibero-American trend.

In the Cuban Civil Process, progressive changes are also observed, since in the ordinary process, the allegations phase is written including the reply and rejoinder and in the answer the defendant makes use of the counterclaim and peremptory exceptions, since the delays are presented before the answer and will be resolved in writing by the procedures of the incidents. If the debate is contracted to questions of strict law or to facts whose justification results from the writings and documents presented, the court will pass judgment without further formalities, otherwise it will open the process to evidence, which will be proposed in writing and only in the practice of the confession and witness orality is used. In the investigation, hearing and sentencing stage, the parties will request the hearing process or at the request of their own motion,it is the other moment where orality is present.

In special processes such as Food, Divorce for Just Cause, Processes of Amparo in possession, Suspension of New Construction and Forced Expropriation, writing also prevails and only orality is used in the practice of some means of evidence, in the celebration of the appearance and the hearing if interested.

In the Appeal processes, orality is used in the practice of some means of evidence and at the hearing.

Instruction 187 of December 20, 2007 of the People's Supreme Court. That entered into force on January 3, 2008, introduced the Family Courts in the country and offered another possibility for the use of orality, since under the protection of articles 42 and 364 of the Civil Procedures Law, the phase of allegations and before ordering the taking of evidence, the Court summons the parties to an appearance in order to achieve conciliation, provided that it is not the agreement that violates the best interests of the minors or contravenes the legislation and in the event that no agreement is reached, fix the aspects to be tested.

In the Ordinary process, the allegations phase will be concluded. By using this appearance, many processes end and in others the probationary period is simplified.

Instruction No. 191 of April 14, 2009 of the Governing Council of the Supreme People's Court, which entered into force on June 1 of that year, extended to ordinary, summary and incidental civil proceedings, the use of the appearance to which Instruction No. 187 refers to, to clean up the litigation process, it also authorizes in these processes the Seizure of Assets and other precautionary measures established by the Law of Civil, Administrative, Labor and Economic Procedure.

Instruction No. 216 of May 17, 2012 of the Supreme People's Court repealed 187 and provided family proceedings with greater simplicity, by expanding the use of orality, to the adoption of precautionary measures aimed at guaranteeing the protection of the rights of minors and of the goods essential for their education and development.

The appearance under the aforementioned article 42 will take place within ten days after the completion of the allegations phase and before the process was opened for evidence, it was established in a mandatory manner, with the presence of the parties, interested third parties (grandparents or others), their representatives, the Prosecutor and the Multidisciplinary Team, will be held publicly unless the nature of the matter prevents it. The objectives will be aimed firstly at cleaning up the process by ventilating the pertinent exceptions, setting the terms of the debate and conciliating claims, which if the latter is achieved and not being the agreement, violating the legality or threatening the interests of minors and social, puts end to process. It also regulates the way in which the appearance and the writing of the minutes will take place.

If no agreement is reached, the process will be opened for tests and will continue according to the established procedure.

Another novel aspect of Instruction No. 216 is that it introduces the rules to practice Listening to Minors, the formalities of the act, the participants, without a gown, the obligation to create an environment of safety and trust with the infant, It establishes the use of an understandable language, to be patient while listening, that the documentation will be made without the presence of the minor and prohibits the recording of the act and its reproduction.

This Instruction guarantees the observance of integrating principles such as immediacy, concentration, equality of the parties and orality, as well as strengthens the leadership role of the court, the ex officio procedural impulse and the precautionary protection of the Principle of the Best Interest of the Child..

Critical analysis on the legal regulation of the Orality of Cuban civil and family processes.

To have an idea of how orality in civil and family proceedings works in judicial practice, we applied an interview to 60% of the teachers, judges, prosecutors and lawyers, who work in civil and family matters in different municipalities of the province and yielded the following results.

They have an average of 6 years of experience in this activity, None have participated in a hearing in the last 5 years, which allows us to appreciate that the use of this procedure is null. 49.5% identified orality with the word verbal and 10.5% in addition to the verbal word with the combination of several procedural principles, which shows that the knowledge about it is incomplete. Before the entry into force of Instruction No. 187 of 2007, only 6 % have received some training on the use of orality and the guidelines had been aimed at exceptional cases, clarifying terms, concepts or other elements with relevance to the ruling. 60% think that orality is used to a limited extent, practice tests, appearances and at the hearing.21% consider that the current regulation of the use of orality in civil and family proceedings is acceptable and 39% that the opportunities are still limited, which could be further expanded. The total of those interviewed thinks that the Instructions are gradually 187, 191 and 216 increase the possibilities of the use of orality and 57% also conceive them as an attempt to temper Cuban civil procedure to current trends in procedural law.191 and 216 increase the possibilities of the use of orality and 57% also conceive them as an attempt to temper Cuban civil procedure to current trends in procedural law.191 and 216 increase the possibilities of the use of orality and 57% also conceive them as an attempt to temper Cuban civil procedure to current trends in procedural law.

After reviewing 50% of civil and family proceedings in the last 5 years, none of them used the hearing process, a result that corresponds to the responses to the survey.

We agree with the opinion of Eric Pérez Sarmiento, in his Proposals for a possible Reform of Civil Procedure in Cuba, when he states that the modification of the current Cuban Civil Procedures Law, “is conditioned by the requirement of greater simplicity in the procedural acts given the nature of the issues that in the present and in the foreseeable future will be the subject of debate in this jurisdiction, due to the need to increase orality in civil and administrative debates in order to increase the publicity of the process, the access of the parties and the social impact of these matters, (…) "

We consider that our legislation on civil and family procedure is progressively informed on the principle of Orality, influencing the legal awareness of the population in these matters, on the speed of processes and on the quality of the administration of justice.

Upon completion of the research actions proposed to obtain an adequate response to the scientific problem, we reached the following conclusions:

FIRST: That orality is an accessible form of communication between the Court with the parties and other people involved in the process and facilitates the correct appreciation of the evidence. It is not possible for the judge not to hear the witnesses or the parties or confront their said, only in an oral or hearing process is where there is truly concentration, immediacy and publicity; Therefore, orality does not only imply the predominance of the verbal element but also the prevalence of these principles. SECOND: The incomplete knowledge of the principle of orality in the operators of the law limits its best use. THIRD: The combination of orality and writing, with a predominance of the first, in civil and family proceedings, decisively influences the legal consciousness of the population in these matters,in the speed of the processes and in the quality of the administration of justice FOURTH: The legal regulation of Orality in the Cuban civil and family process, although it has undergone important steps towards the hearing process, should continue to open to the use of orality.

In accordance with our conclusions, we recommend:

To the Ibero-American proceduralists to continue working for the approval of procedural codes in which the use of orality proliferates, in just combination with writing, also guaranteeing concentration, immediacy and publicity. To the National Union of Jurists of Cuba, to intensify the preparation of its members in the use of orality in civil and family matters, to positively influence the quality of the administration of justice.For the professors of the Bachelor of Law Degree, increase their work in order to disseminate in the pre and postgraduate of the Principle of Orality, its advantages and current trends.

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Peña Mulet, Roberto: Convenience of the adoption of the principle of orality in the Cuban civil process. Juridical Information Magazine No.1 January-March, UNJC, Santiago de Cuba, 1989. Pérez Sarmiento, Eric; "Propositions for a possible Reform of Civil Procedure in Cuba" Legal Review No. 15. Disclosure Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Cuba, April-June, 1987. Prieto Castro, Leonardo: "Civil Procedural Law" Volume I. Editorial Reno. Madrid 1989.Ediciones Harla UNAM, México, 1991. Peña Mulet, Roberto: Convenience of the adoption of the principle of orality in the Cuban civil process. Juridical Information Magazine No.1 January-March, UNJC, Santiago de Cuba, 1989. Pérez Sarmiento, Eric; "Propositions for a possible Reform of Civil Procedure in Cuba" Legal Review No. 15. Disclosure Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Cuba, April-June, 1987. Prieto Castro, Leonardo: "Civil Procedural Law" Volume I. Editorial Reno. Madrid 1989.Ediciones Harla UNAM, México, 1991. Peña Mulet, Roberto: Convenience of the adoption of the principle of orality in the Cuban civil process. Juridical Information Magazine No.1 January-March, UNJC, Santiago de Cuba, 1989. Pérez Sarmiento, Eric; "Propositions for a possible Reform of Civil Procedure in Cuba" Legal Review No. 15. Disclosure Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Cuba, April-June, 1987. Prieto Castro, Leonardo: "Civil Procedural Law" Volume I. Editorial Reno. Madrid 1989.Disclosure Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Cuba, April-June, 1987. Prieto Castro, Leonardo: "Civil Procedural Law" Volume I. Editorial Reno. Madrid 1989.Disclosure Department of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Cuba, April-June, 1987. Prieto Castro, Leonardo: "Civil Procedural Law" Volume I. Editorial Reno. Madrid 1989.

Legislation consulted

Law 1/2000 of January 7 "Spanish Civil Procedure Law". Law No. 7 of 1977 of Civil, Administrative, Labor and Economic Procedure in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba, Printed in the Granma Newspaper Combination. March 2004 Decree Law No. 241 of 2006, amending Law No. 7 in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba. Ordinary Edition. 2006.Civil Procedure Code of Colombia.Civil Procedure Code of Peru.Civil Procedure Code of Bolivia.Civil Procedure Code of Ecuador.Civil Procedure Code of Venezuela.Civil Procedure Code of Chile.Civil Procedure Code of Uruguay. Family Code, Law No. 1289 of February 14, 1975, in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Cuba. Ordinary Edition, Havana, 1975, Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, 2002,Printed in the Graphic Company of Granma in June 2004 Instruction No. 187 of December 20, 2007 of the Governing Council of the Supreme People's Court Instruction No. 191 of April 14, 2009 of the Governing Council of the Supreme People's Court.Instruction No. 216 of May 17, 2012 of the Governing Council of the Supreme People's Court.