Article 55 of the Sharia Procedures System: Absence of the plaintiff

Article 55 of the Sharia Procedures System: Absence of the plaintiff

Article 55 of the Sharia Procedures Law is concerned with controlling the procedures followed in the event that the plaintiff is absent from attending any session of the case. These procedures are to cancel the case or consider it as if it did not exist, so what is the regulatory text, and what are the controls? This is what we answer in the article

Article 55 of the Sharia Procedures System

It states that: “If the plaintiff does not attend any session of the case and does not present an excuse acceptable to the court, it may decide to cancel it. If (sixty) days have passed and the plaintiff does not request to proceed with it after canceling it, or does not attend after proceeding with it, it is considered as if it did not exist. If the plaintiff then requests that the case proceed, the court shall rule – on its own initiative – to consider the case as if it had never existed“.

This article came in accordance with the established fact that the basic principle in a lawsuit is that it should be heard in the presence of both parties [a plaintiff and a defendant], and as long as the plaintiff is the one who filed his lawsuit, and the sessions are determined as a result, he is supposed to attend them on time, and adhere to that, but there is no doubt that circumstances occur and obstacles are possible, as the plaintiff may have an excuse that prevents him from attending the session, and on the other hand, he may not have an excuse, therefore; Article 55 of the Sharia Procedures Law stipulates the procedures to be followed in each case, and explains them as follows:

First: Cancellation of the lawsuit

Cancellation of a lawsuit means deleting its registration from the court’s hearing schedule, so that lawsuits required to be decided by the judicial department do not accumulate.

The case will be dismissed if the plaintiff does not attend any of the case sessions. It is required here that the plaintiff has not submitted to the court an excuse explaining the reason for his non-attendance, noting that accepting the excuse or not is at the court’s discretion.

The decision to dismiss the case is not mandatory or inevitable for the judge, but rather he is the one who decides whether he wishes to dismiss the case or not. This is evident from the use of the letter ”F” in Article 55 of the Sharia Procedures Law, which includes: “…it may decide to dismiss it..”. Therefore, the plaintiff may be absent from attending one of the case sessions, and yet the judge continues to consider it. Here, the judge’s procedure is correct and not subject to any comment.

It is worth noting that as long as the decision to dismiss the case has not been in place for a period of (60) days, as soon as the plaintiff requests the completion of its progress, the case will continue to be considered from where it left off, and will be based on its previous course of action for dismissal, in contrast to the issuance of the court’s decision to consider the case as if it had never existed.

Second: The lawsuit as if it did not exist

We mentioned above that the cancellation of the case occurs in the event that the plaintiff does not attend any of the case sessions, and he is also given a period of (60) days from the date of the cancellation decision; during which he can submit a request to complete the progress of the case.

The new information here is that if a period of (60) days has passed without the plaintiff submitting a request to complete the process, then the lawsuit is considered “as if it did not exist“, and the plaintiff cannot submit a request to complete the process in this case.

Also, if the judge issued his decision to dismiss the case for the first time, and then the plaintiff submitted a request to complete the case, and the case was actually re-conducted, but the plaintiff was absent again from the case sessions after the case was conducted, then the ruling would be issued considering the case “as if it had not existed”.

The only way for the plaintiff in this case is either to file an objection to the ruling, guaranteed by a strong and valid excuse justifying his absence, or to file a new lawsuit with new procedures and new registration.

Note that the court’s ruling considering the case as if it did not exist does not allow the case to be filed again, because the ruling here is formal and does not decide on the subject of the dispute.

Contact the office of lawyer Abdul Majeed Al Rashid for Law and Legal Consultations to attend advocacy and representation sessions to guarantee all your rights.