The Puerto Rico Senate's Judiciary Committee, chaired by at-large Senator Ángel Toledo López, held a public hearing on Senate Bill 1435, which he authored, to evaluate creation of the "Código de Procedimientos Legales Especiales de Puerto Rico" (Code of Special Legal Procedures of Puerto Rico). The bill seeks to consolidate and modernize, in a single legal code, special civil procedures handled before the Puerto Rico General Court of Justice, including guardianship and judicial defender proceedings, eviction, special probate proceedings, procedures for homeless persons, injunctions and restraining orders, possessory proceedings, and extraordinary remedies such as mandamus and certiorari.
The measure would repeal the 1933 Code of Civil Procedure and the "Law on Controversies and Provisional States of Law," and would amend Article 1204 of the Puerto Rico Civil Code to set a three-year statute of limitations for actions against corporate directors, officers, or shareholders. Toledo López said the changes aim to adapt civil procedure to a modernized Civil Code, addressing issues not foreseen in 1930.
Representatives from the Department of Justice, the Puerto Rico Notarial College, the Department of the Family, and the Department of Housing testified, generally supporting the modernization goal while raising specific technical concerns, procedural safeguards, and calls for greater interagency coordination.