Challenging the admission of questions and protesting against their inadmissibility

Article 369 of the Spanish Civil Procedure Law (the so called LEC), dedicated to challenging the admission of questions and protesting against their inadmissibility, provides:

1. In the act of interrogation itself, parties other than whoever posed the question may challenge their admission and note the evaluations and qualifications that they deem inappropriate and that, in their opinion, should be considered not carried out.

2. The party that is dissatisfied with the inadmissibility of questions, may state so and request that their protest be recorded in the minutes.

Through said precept of the current LEC, the possibility of contesting during the act of the trial the relevance of the questions that the Judge admits was included as a novelty in our procedural regulations, a provision that we must put in connection with the articles that regulate inadmissibility of the questions in the interrogations, namely:

1.- Impertinence and uselessness.

Article 283 Impertinence or uselessness of the evidentiary activity

1. No evidence shall be admitted which, because it is not related to what is the subject of the process, must be considered impertinent.

2. Nor should they be admitted, as useless, those tests that, according to reasonable and safe rules and criteria, in no case can contribute to clarifying the disputed facts.

3. Any activity prohibited by law will never be admitted as evidence.

2.- Introduction of evaluations or qualifications.

Article 368 Content and admissibility of the questions asked

1. The questions posed to the witness must be formulated orally and with due clarity and precision. They will not include evaluations or qualifications, and if these are incorporated, they will be considered not carried out.

2. The court will decide on the questions posed in the same act of interrogation, admitting those that may be conducive to the investigation of controversial facts and circumstances, which are related to the object of the trial.

Questions that do not refer to the knowledge of a witness according to article 360 ​​will be inadmissible.

3. If, despite being inadmissible, a question is answered, the answer will not be recorded in the minutes.