Legal Regulation for Stay of Proceedings in Civil Lawsuits

As the title indicates, this study has examined the stay of proceedings in civil lawsuits in accordance with the Civil and Commercial Trials Assets Law # 2 of 2001. The study has addressed the nature of stay of proceedings in civil lawsuits as one of the civil argument hindrances. The study began with a definition of the stay of proceedings and how it is different from other argument hindrances such as discontinuation and dropping of lawsuit. It also dwelt on the lawsuits in which stay of proceedings is allowed or those in which it is not allowed. For instance, the stay of proceedings is not applicable to lawsuits pertinent to public order. Causes for stay of proceedings differ. Some of them are attributed to the will of the parties to the lawsuit. This is called suspension (of litigation) by agreement or what the Palestinian lawmaker has termed as public postponement. Other causes are stipulated in the law. One of them is to submit an application to get judge’s response or to challenge the constitutionality of a certain text in the law or in case of dispute between two courts over viewing the lawsuit or in case of link between one civil lawsuit and a criminal lawsuit. In all these cases, the law has stipulated the necessity to applythe stay of proceedings until completion of the studying of these applications. The cause for the stay of proceedings could be judicial. In such a scenario, the judge has to decide on the necessity to call for the stay of proceedings or not. For example, he could call for the halt of the lawsuit until the deliberation into an important, initial issue necessary for the court in order to look into the civil lawsuit. There is another type of stay of judiciary proceedings which has been considered by the Egyptian legislator but was not considered by his Palestinian counterpart. It is called penal suspension. The judge exercises the power to halt proceedings as a punishment for the plaintiff if he/she has failed in his lawsuit. The study has also examined the possible effects resulting from the stay of the proceedings. In this regard, the stay of proceedings has an impact on the inevitable and non-inevitable dates. The effect differs epending on whether the stay is by agreement, judicial, or legal. Although the case isstill standing during the stay, it becomes in a dormant state and doesn’t remain halted endlessly. Either the case resumes its proceedings upon one party’s submission of a newapplication or its proceeding is not resumed, and in this case, it is dropped. And upon drop of the lawsuit, it becomes as if it had not existed. All its effects disappear save those spelled out by the lawmaker and stipulated by the law.