Substantial violation of substantive law in civil proceedings

Violation of substantive law in a civil process may be one of the reasons for changing a judicial act or even canceling it. Consider what exactly is considered such a violation and what should be the degree of its seriousness.

The difference between substantive and procedural law

Substantive law - the rules that directly govern social relations. They are collected in codes, laws, acts of the government and central authorities with appropriate authority to publish them. For example, the civil code, the law "On Protection of Consumer Rights". Decisions of the Government, other acts following them also relate to substantive law. It is not always clear which act to apply, because they are often not consistent with each other.

With procedural law, everything is simpler. It is included in the procedural codes. Sometimes the rules governing the process are set forth in substantive law acts, and the law on consumer rights is an example of this.

Normative regulation

The procedure for applying legislation is regulated by the rules of the Civil Procedure Code. A significant impact on the practical application of the norms is provided by the clarifications of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and courts of the level of subjects. Despite the use of the concept of “violation of substantive law”, the criteria are still different when it comes to all stages of the proceedings.

Reasons to reverse decisions

In the procedural codes, various reasons are listed as the reason for changing or repealing judicial acts:

• violations of substantive law;
• violations of the proceedings in court.

As a reason, one of the reasons is enough. Moreover, they are considered serious if they had an impact on the results of the case or could have had it.

Severity Approaches

The appeal stage provides for the identification of violations of substantive law as such. The cassation stage requires that the complaint indicate violations that are material. What exactly is meant by those, in this case is not indicated. In the explanatory documents of the Supreme Court, nothing is also noted in this regard, and the provisions on the appeal review are applied by analogy. True, it speaks of violations as such.

The picture becomes clearer if we study the judicial practice of the cassation instances in various cases, in particular the country's main court. Another thing is that judges, pointing to the correct, in their opinion, approaches, do not always adhere to them. Thus, what is defined as a material violation of substantive and procedural law is not fully understood.

Serious process disruptions

If we consider violations of substantive and procedural law in general, then the law says little in the first category, little specificity. In the case of procedural rules, it was done somewhat differently. There are errors that the court examining the case may consider serious enough.

There are violations that are considered serious by virtue of a law, without additional conditions:

• illegal composition of the court;
• lack of information about the notification of the interested party in the case of the meeting;
• violation of language rules (for example, a translator is not involved);
• the judicial act affected the rights and interests of persons who were not involved in the process;
• a judicial act is not signed by a judge or judges or signed, but not by those who accepted it;
• the judge did not comply with the rules on the deliberation room;
• lack of meeting minutes.

One of the points listed is enough for the decision to be canceled and the court’s violations of substantive law not paid attention.

Now about substantive law

Code of Civil Procedure describes violations in the field of substantive law as follows:

• non-application of the law that was to be applied;
• application of the wrong law;
• misinterpretation of the rule of law.

Despite the fact that the law is spoken about, this rule is quite applicable to other normative legal acts of substantive law. In this case, the provision on the application of the procedural law by analogy works.

Wrong choice of law to resolve a case

Two situations are implied here:

• the wrong normative act was chosen (for example, the court applied the articles of the civil code rather than the land);
• the wrong version of the normative act was applied.

The first option is not uncommon due to confusion in the ratio of laws and other acts. This happens in the field of regulation of legal entities. Their status is regulated by both the Civil Code and special laws; it is not at all easy to combine them. You have to choose between several approaches. It should be noted that the position of higher courts with respect to which of them is correct periodically changes. There is a difference in the understanding of the law between the Supreme and Constitutional Courts.

Some cases are very specific, for example, disputes in the housing sector. There is a whole layer of regulatory documents that significantly limit in reality the direct effect of codes.

Russian law is hardly stable. Regularly make changes in regulations. The judge’s task is to correctly determine which edition was in effect at the time of the dispute between the parties. Sometimes they are faced with the need to study a document that has already been canceled. The confusion arises from the multi-stage order of entry into force of acts. A lot of time passes between signing and publishing, which is why it is not always clear in what time frames it operates. These are the two main reasons for the violation of substantive law in the civil process.

Interpretation Issues

The task of the practicing lawyer is to understand the meaning of the law or by-laws. They are not always written so that it is easy to understand their meaning. There is inconsistency even within the framework of one article of the law, not to mention its provisions located in different parts of the document. Even a very clear norm can cause a double interpretation.

When drafting the text of a normative document, the principle applies: from general to particular. This is not to say that it is being successfully applied. Periodically, a statement of exceptions to the general rule is made in such a way that it is not completely clear which situations they apply to.

To some extent, the salvation of the High Courts is salvation, however, they are not always given or do not give answers to all questions that arise with judges.

Finally

Violation by the court of substantive and procedural law is the reason for the cancellation of previously adopted judicial acts, mentioned in the decisions of the appeal and cassation level. The first concerns the improper choice of an act that governs disputed relations (the wording is not so, a document with less legal force is applied, etc.).

Procedural violations - failure to comply with the proceedings. One of them is enough to cancel the judicial act. These violations have more influence on the career of a judge than errors in the application of substantive law.