Civil Litigation Reduction

Abstract

Civil litigation is a process of action, not self-reliance. It is initiated by filing a lawsuit concerning disputed rights before the court for resolution. The legislator, in the Code of Civil Procedure, mandates that the plaintiff file their claim in a petition and stipulates several substantive and procedural conditions for the court to accept this petition. The primary objective of these conditions is to ensure the relative stability of the subject matter of the lawsuit for both the judges and the parties, preventing the dispute from becoming fluid, shifting, and unclear.

In other words, the legislator has defined the judge's role by obligating them not to alter the factual structure of the case as presented by the litigants and to refrain from basing their judgment on facts not raised by the litigants and not recorded in the court proceedings. However, in specific cases, the court permits amending a lawsuit in terms of its parties and cause of action. This is to prevent parties from filing separate lawsuits and overburdening the judiciary, as well as to avoid issuing contradictory judgments that cannot be enforced simultaneously.

For example, the plaintiff may discover after filing the lawsuit, or the defendant after submitting a defense, that they erred in specifying their claims. In such cases, they can amend the subject matter of the lawsuit by changing its scope, limits, beginning, or end. They can reduce the claim to less than the original one, provided that the subject matter of the lawsuit is not fundamentally altered.