Good faith in the social jurisdictional order. Normative exegesis of an under-perceived concept

Abstract

Good faith is a value and a principle of exceptional relevance in the legal system that is based, in our western society, on the concept of the same name of Roman Law. Originating in the field of private relations, it currently extends to the most different spheres of the legal system and constitutes the greatest support of the same, assuming, in short, the essential relationship of law with ethics, which must preside over all the acts of the human being and the institutions created by it. Moving to the specific procedural space, and more specifically, in the social jurisdictional order, good faith is alluded to in repeated precepts of our LRJS, sometimes expressly and other tacitly but no less clearly, as well as other concepts that imply its formulation to the contrary sensu such as bad faith, abuse of law, fraud of law, negligente (absence of due diligence) or reckleness, referrent not only to the litigantig parties but also to the legislator himself and the interest that presides over the applicable norm and to the court concerned. However, on frequent occasions, good faith is understood as a declarative principle and as a formal framework of the case with no further effective significance, when it is a dynamic concept that is perfectly enforceable in each specific case if of the defrauded texts, its absence is evidenced, and it is punishable if the spirit of the norm is violated, leading, by reaction and after the timely complaint if it is not appreciated ex officio, the due effect opposite to its alleged avoidance or its simple inattention, so it is necessary to examine the scope of each precept and the specific dimension in each one of this principle.