ПОСЛЕДИЦЕ ПРОПУШТАЊА РОКОВА У НОВОМ ПАРНИЧНОМ ПРОЦЕСНОМ ПРАВУ РЕПУБЛИКЕ СРБИЈЕ
CONSEQUENCES OF INOBSERVING TIME LIMITS UNDER THE NEW SERBIAN CIVIL PROCEDURE LAW

Summary/Abstract: By adopting the new Litigation Procedure Act, the Republic of Serbia regulated the area of civil procedure and introduced novelties in the civil procedure law which had been in use (with respective modifications) for more than 25 years. Departing from the fact that courts' inefficiency is one of the vital problems in the Republic of Serbia, the situation partly being caused by the very wording of the Litigation Procedure Act, the legislator has embarked on a number of various measures and interventions in order to improve the conditions for effecting the right to trial within a reasonable time, as one of the fundamental human rights. Some of these measures are reflected in time-limiting the litigants' actions and court actions by imposing deadlines and determining the consequences of their inobservance. The analysis of the new Litigation Procedure Act regarding the time limits for embarking on civil actions and the consequences of their inobservance shows that there has been a significant increase in the number of court and litigants' actions in view of which limitations were imposed. In this group of time-limited actions, the prevailing ones are court litigation actions, where the inobservance of actions is not followed by any procedural consequences. Preclusion, as a consequence of inobservance, is envisaged for a relatively small number of litigants' actions, primarily those in view of which there are prescribed time limits. According to the new Litigation Procedure Act, time limits for court litigation actions cannot be extended, as most of them are not preclusive, so that the litigants can undertake most actions for which the court has set the time limit, even after the time limit has expired.The legislator has limited the litigants' right to present facts and evidence in the first instance proceedings. Thus, throughout the proceedings and all the way to the final adjudication, litigants can present new facts and evidence, amend their previous allegations, submit answers to the opponent's allegations, present their legal reasoning, etc. Accordingly, the new Litigation Procedure Act does not allow the court to order the litigants (under the threat of issuing preclusion) to present procedural material in written form within a legally prescribed time limit. As there is no possibility to determine preclusive court time limits for embarking on a large number of litigants' actions, it provides the non-conscientious parties and their legal representatives a wider "manouvre space" for prolonging the procedure. In such a situation, the court is actually unable to prevent the postponement of the hearing, even when it is obviously based on a litigant's malicious act; the only means which may be employed to "discipline" the litigant, and to possibly prevent the litigant's further non-conscientious behaviour, is to issue penalties for the misuse of procedural authority.

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