La determinación del interés directo y legítimo en el resultado del pleito del articulo 13.1 LEC

Abstract

The existence of a direct and legitimate interest in the result of a lawsuit will determine the intervention of third parties other than those initially constituted as parties, this interest being the assumption of the intervention, interested subjects to whom the Civil Procedural Act (LEC) allow an activity in the process aimed at achieving a result as less adverse as possible to their interests, without altering the object dealt with in the process. Case law, through the various assumptions that have been tried, has gradually determined the characteristics that delimit this legitimate interest, different from the simple interest, as it is recognized and protected by the legal system, and also from the de facto interest, as it is legally relevant, in close relation to effective judicial protection and access to justice, legal standing and the concept of the procedural party, which implies direct effects on the proceedings for its owner. The aim of this paper is to examine the direct and legitimate interest, to specify it according to the assumptions admitted in the case law, and to analyse the figure of the procedural intervention, as well as its difference with others. Interest with legal effects not only in the declarative process, but also in the enforcement process and in other areas, such as labour, bankruptcy or consumers right, in which the application of this figure is used to give entry to third parties that may be affected, directly or indirectly, by the outcome of the process.