Principles of civil procedural law

As in every industry in the system of law, civil procedural law has its own principles, or the fundamental principles on which the whole system of civil process is based. These principles serve the objectives of this industry, which are identified in Article 2 of the Civil Procedure Code (CCP). The protection of the rights and interests of individuals subject to challenge in court, the strengthening of the rule of law and the prevention of delicts are impossible without the general, interbranch and special-sectoral principles discussed below.

First, the CPC fixed the constitutional principles of civil procedural law. So, the only subject authorized to administer justice is the court. (Article 5 of the CCP) This provision is consistent with the legislation on the judicial system. Parties to the contract may provide for recourse to an arbitration court; In the presence of an arbitration clause, the filing of an action in a court of general jurisdiction is possible only after the case is examined in an arbitration court. In 2011, a law on mediation was adopted, proposing to resolve civil disputes through intermediaries before going to court. At the same time, mediation is not part of the civil process. It should be noted and such constitutional principles of civil procedural law as the equality of persons before the law and their equality before the court. In the CPC, these two principles are combined in one article, but theorists insist on their separation. The equality of persons before the law exists always, including outside the process, and they become equal before the court from the beginning of the proceedings. The principles allow to ensure the competitiveness of the process and guarantee the right to judicial protection to each person who submitted the claim. Article 128 of the RF Constitution establishes the principle of the appointment of judges. A special federal law provides for a special procedure for obtaining the status of a judge. The irremovability and independence of judges are provided for in Articles 120 and 121 of the Constitution and Articles 7 and 8 of the CCP.

Since 2010, in order to accelerate the resolution of disputes by courts in the CCP, the principle of a reasonable period of judicial procedure and enforcement of the court order has been introduced. GIC also fixes such intersectoral principles of publicity and the language of legal proceedings, which are also regulated in the CCP and the AIC in relation to the relevant branches of procedural law. Normative prescriptions on legality and on judicial truth as the goal of the process bring civilian production closer to other procedural branches.

Secondly, civil procedural law has its own principles, which are not characteristic of other industries. The most striking example is the principle of disposability. It is not fixed in the CCP directly, as a separate article, but it follows from the content of Art. 3, art. 4, art. 39, art. 44 and art. 137. The function of the court in the civil process is to assist the plaintiff and the respondent in exercising their procedural powers and rights and in monitoring compliance by the parties. The plaintiff and the respondent freely exercise their powers and rights, they can independently change the amount of the claim. So, the plaintiff is entitled to change the subject and grounds of the claim, the amount of claims, or completely refuse the claim brought before. Respondent is authorized to designate counterclaims, to recognize the claim in part. At any stage of the civil process, the parties have the opportunity to terminate the case by concluding an amicable agreement.

There are organizational and functional principles of civil procedural law. Organizational principles include ensuring the mechanism of the work of the judicial system in the courts of general jurisdiction, considering civil disputes, judicial principles. Functional principles are legal in their content. Individual legal scholars note the existence not only of organizational and functional, but also organizational and functional principles that combine the properties of the principles of the two groups mentioned above. In theory, it is also customary to identify fundamental, or absolute, and constructive, or relative, principles of civil procedural law.