On December 10, 2021, Law No. 21,394 came into force, which introduces reforms to the justice system to face the situation after the State of Constitutional Exception of Catastrophe due to Public Calamity, derived from Bulletins No. 13752-07 and 13,651-7.
This law is born in the context of the need to modernize access to justice, considering the context in which the jurisdictional function must be developed today, seeking, among other purposes, to streamline and expedite the processing of litigation.
Among other modifications that apply to the civil procedural system, important changes are contemplated regarding notifications and deadlines.
Regarding notifications, the former Article 44 of the Code of Civil Procedure required that in order to carry out the subsidiary personal notification, the Minister of Faith, after certifying in two different days and hours that the defendant or requested party was at the place of the trial, the interested party had to request prior authorization from the court, which on certain occasions unnecessarily delayed the notification process.
Now, with the modification, the judicial authorization is dispensed with, and the minister of faith may proceed with the notification when the second search has been carried out successfully.
Another modification is that, previously, in final judgments, the resolution that receives the case as evidence and the resolutions that ordered the personal appearance of the parties, according to Article 48 of the Code of Civil Procedure, had to be notified by writ of summons, which implied carrying out the diligence by means of a minister of faith.
Today, according to the new wording of Article 49 of the same legal body, the parties must indicate a valid means of electronic notification, and the aforementioned resolutions may be notified by such means upon request of the interested party and without the notified party being able to object, the notification being effective from the day it is sent.
This requirement -the indication of e-mail- was also incorporated as such for the filing of any claim or defense (Articles 254 and 309 of the Civil Code, respectively).
Another relevant modification in the matter of notifications is that the registrations, subinscription or cancellation ordered by judicial resolution before the Real Estate Registry (except for seizures and precautionary measures), may be made directly by the interested party, dispensing with the minister of faith and the fee that this entailed.
On the other hand, with respect to the deadlines for answering the claim in an ordinary lawsuit, it will be 18 days and not 15 as previously provided for in the regulations, without prejudice to the maintenance of the summons table for notifications to be made outside the jurisdictional territory. Articles 41, 258 and 259 of the Code of Civil Procedure were amended accordingly.
Finally, the time limit for the debtor to file defenses in the executive proceeding was modified from 4 days to 8 days, counted after the debtor has been notified and requested to pay in the jurisdictional territory of the court. With this, Article 459 of the Code of Civil Procedure was modified.
In case of doubts or questions regarding these issues, please contact:
Francisco Fuentes | Director of the Civil Litigation and Arbitration Group | ffuentes@az.cl
Job Jorquera | Associate | jjorquera@az.cl
