Hungary has a new Civil Procedure since 1 January, 2018 and it introduced a whole new concept of litigation. The plaint will become more relevant as plaintiffs will have less options to alter their statements upon submission. The statutory requirement to be represented by a lawyer will be the general rule and only procedures before labour court and district courts will be exempt.
The new concept of civil procedures in Hungary divides procedures into three phases: the first phase is from the submission to the admission of the plaint, followed by the pre-hearing phase and the last phase when the hearings are held.
Compiling the plaint will require a more thorough approach both from clients and from attorneys. Plaints shall unambiguously specify the request, the right to be exercised, the legal arguments, all facts known related to the case as well as the motions to take evidence and all evidence at hand shall be attached. Should any element of the plaint be missing, the court will reject it without issuing any appeal to remedy the deficiencies.
Defendants will not find it easy to plead either: the response shall be as detailed as the plaint in terms of the facts, legal arguments, motions and evidence. Should the defendant fail to submit a response – or request for set-off – or such would be rejected by the court, the procedure will be terminated in the second phase by an injunction which will oblige the defendant as per the plaint. Such injunction will be final and binding if the defendant will not submit any opposition against it.
The second phase starts with the submission of the response of the defendant. The court will have three options: it will either immediately set a hearing to clarify the legal questions, or instruct the plaintiff to make a statement on the response, or it will continue directly with the third phase where the hearings will concentrate only on the evidence: in this phase, the parties may not change their requests or legal arguments.
In order to enhance professional litigation, there will be fewer options to go to court without a lawyer. Legal representation will not be mandatory only in case of claims below 30 million HUF (save for some particular types of claims, e.g. copyright claims or corporate law claims); lawsuits on personal status (origin, guardianship, marriage, etc.); enforcement cases and labour law cases. Should the party be represented by a lawyer in the above cases, he shall maintain such representation through the entire procedure and he will have only one shot to switch to a procedure in person.