The study provided by the author is devoted to some general approaches on the judicial and procedural systems in some countries in Latin America and in the Caribbean Sea area. The first part of this approach is dedicated to an introduction of the general reforms in the geographical area of reference and to the concerns of the governments in the area regarding the implementation of some reforms intended to make justice more efficient and more accessible to the litigants.
The author notes that also in Latin America and in the countries of the Caribbean area the real problems of justice are not essentially different from those on other continents, including from the European area: the postponement of trials, the overcrowding of the courts of law and a modest funding of the judicial system. The political influences on justice in some countries in Latin America and the Caribbean area have led, in this geographical area as well, to a significant decrease of the citizens’ trust in the judicial system.
The organization of the judicial systems from the countries of reference offers us a complex legal geography, in relation to the way of organization from the European countries, since in many states in the area the Roman-German law system coexists with that of common law, the latter’s greatest influence being found in the field of public law.
The last part of the study presents us some of the most significant approaches at the level of the strictly procedural institutions. And the reforms undertaken in the last three decades in procedural matters cannot ignore the role and influence exerted by the Preliminary Draft Civil Procedure Code for Latin America. That is why the author presented, in a synthetic manner, the principles that were the basis of this important Latin American project and which had a positive impact on some of the regulations contained in the new Civil Procedure Codes adopted in recent years in the specified geographical area.
The author’s investigation is not only of doctrinal interest, viewed from the point of view of a comparative research, but also a practical one in an era in which the effervescence of globalization forces us to new reflections on the organization of an efficient, fast justice that leads to prompt enforcement of the judicial decisions. Some of the procedural reforms in Latin America and in the Caribbean area can also be benchmarks for the reforms of justice in other countries, including in the European Union area. And, from among these, the most significant concern undoubtedly the acceleration of trials, the rationalization of the means of appeal, especially the appeal in cassation, the reduction of special procedures and the settlement of some cases, especially of low value, in a single hearing.
Cross-border private life is under the rule of legislative changes occurred in the European law and in the national private international law. The property regimes of the international couples benefit from parallel regulations – the Regulation „matrimonial regimes” and the Regulation „registered partnerships”, for the states participating in enhanced judicial cooperation, the national law respectively, for the other Member States. Although they have different sources (the marriage, the registered partnership), the matrimonial regime and the partnership regime have multiple areas of convergence (the role of the will of the parties in determining the law of the patrimonial regime and in designating the competent court of law, the objective location of regimes, the most connecting factors). At the same time, the elements that differentiate the property regime of the spouses and of the partners configurate the specifics of the couples’ unions and the instruments of achieving the predictability and security of the civil circuit with an element of extraneity.