How to Search for Case Law for Free in Spain: Complete Source Guide
All free case law sources in Spain: CENDOJ, BOE, Constitutional Court, HUDOC, EUR-Lex, with advanced search tips.
How to Search for Case Law for Free in Spain: Complete Guide
Case law research consumes hours every week. Knowing the sources and mastering their search tools makes the difference.
1. CENDOJ
The Judicial Documentation Center (poderjudicial.es/search) is the most important free source: 7M+ decisions, all courts, from the 1990s, full anonymized text.
Identifiers: ROJ (STS 1234/2025) and ECLI (ECLI:ES:TS:2025:1234).
Advanced search: free text, court, decision type, date, jurisdiction, reporting judge, appeal number, ROJ.
Tips: quotes for exact phrases, boolean operators (AND/OR/NOT), search by law article, filter by SC chamber, search by reporting judge.
Limitations: keyword-only (no synonyms), no judgment relationships, no doctrinal notes, dated interface.
2. Constitutional Court
Independent search engine (hj.tribunalconstitucional.es): all judgments since 1980, complete dissenting opinions. Allows searching by affected fundamental right.
3. BOE, HUDOC, EUR-Lex
BOE: consolidated legislation, TC judgments. HUDOC (ECHR): all judgments since 1959, filter by Respondent State: Spain. EUR-Lex + CURIA: EU legislation and CJEU case law.
4. Paid Databases
| Database | Price | Advantages |
|---|---|---|
| Aranzadi | €1,500-4,000/yr | Largest annotated base |
| La Ley Digital | €1,200-3,500/yr | Integrated doctrine |
| vLex | €300-1,200/yr | International coverage |
They offer over CENDOJ: case notes, judgment relationships, subject descriptors, templates, alerts, commented legislation.
5. Semantic Search vs. Keyword Search
CENDOJ's fundamental limitation: exact word matching only. Searching "unfair dismissal" won't find "declaration of unfairness of the termination." Semantic search understands meaning: equivalent concepts, synonyms, semantic relationships.
6. Search Strategy
- Start with Supreme Court (binding) ( 2. Move to Provincial/High Court ) 3. Search by law article ( 4. Narrow by date (3-5 years) ) 5. Identify reporting judge, 6. Verify not reversed
How Lexiel Revolutionizes Search
Verified corpus (7,300+ sources), semantic search (natural language), verified citations against CENDOJ and BOE (zero hallucination), ratio decidendi summaries, drafting integration, LATAM coverage.
Key difference: in CENDOJ you search for words; in Lexiel you search for meaning. And unlike paid databases, Lexiel does not hallucinate.
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