Exercising the judge's active role by reformulating the subject matter of the application. Infringement of the limits on referral to court and the parties' right of disposal

JURISPRUDENȚĂ COMENTATĂ ŞI ADNOTATĂ

Abstract

The court of first instance altered the legal grounds supporting standing in favour of the plaintiffs, finding that the effects of the judgment can only occur at most in the estate of the deceased and not of the plaintiffs.

Even if it were accepted that the court of first instance played an active role and correctly qualified the grounds on the basis of which the plaintiffs brought their action, it is unquestionable that this cannot lead to a modification of the elements of the civil action and, implicitly, to an overstepping of the limits of its jurisdiction.

The rationale of Article 22 para. (4) of the Civil Procedure Code is to mitigate the inconvenience of a mischaracterization of the legal acts or facts in dispute, not to confer rights or obligations on persons not involved in the proceedings.

It was possible to speak of a reformulation of the subject-matter of the application, subject to the parties being put in adversarial proceedings, only in so far as there was no logical and legal correlation between the application on the one hand and the statement of reasons in fact and in law on the other, as required by the very manner in which the action was formulated.