La palabra del día: Recurrir

As part of our business Spanish courses online and legal Spanish vocabulary series, today’s word is recurrir — an essential term for legal appeals and challenges in court.

From the Latin recorrere (“to run again”), the Spanish verb recurrir in legal contexts functions as a synonym of presentar or interponer un recurso. And what is a recurso? It is a legal mechanism available to the parties in a proceeding to challenge a judgment or resolution issued by a judge or authority.

The most well-known recurso is the recurso de apelación—an appeal. So, if an apelación is a recurso, that implies there are others, such as recurso de nulidad, recurso de queja, recurso de inconstitucionalidad, etc.

When you encounter the phrase sentencia recurrible, it means that the decision can be challenged through any form of recurso. On the other hand, if we say that a sentence is apelable, we’re specifying that it can be appealed, but we’re not necessarily indicating that it’s open to other types of recursos.

Learn more terms like this in our full business Spanish courses online. dc