Plaintiff's protection: regional regulation, regulatory changes and future trends

Abstract

This work poses a reflection of the plaintiff’s role. It’s aim is not to find out whether the plaintiff is entitled as stakeholder in the penalty procedure, nor to reopen the debate of determining to what extent the plaintiff would be entitled to challenge a judgment. Although permanently interesting, both points have being already considered by the legal doctrine. Nowadays, it appears that an agreement between citizens and public authorities is encouraged in order to achieve the maximum observance of the law. Several Autonomous Regions have recently ruled with the objective of overcoming the reluctance to present a claim, the European Union has also submitted a proposal of European Directive on this matter in the same lines and Congress of Deputies (of Spain) is currently processing three Proposals of Regulation with the same aim. Although it exists an unprecedented consensus regarding the importance of the plaintiff’s role in the strict enforcement of the law, there are not few subjects being addressed ambiguously or confusingly, thus the present research aims to identify them and to develop some proposals for improvement.