Law amending the Civil Procedure Code, No. 65/2011/QH12

FORMALLY PASSED THE LAW ON AMENDING, SUPPLEMENTING THE CIVIL PROCEDURE CODE

The National Assembly passed the Law No. 65/2011/QH12 amending and supplementing some articles of the Civil Procedure Code, and one of the most important amends and supplements is the statute of limitations for initiating civil lawsuits.

The statute of limitations for initiating civil lawsuits complies with law. In case the law does not prescribe a statute of limitations for initiating civil lawsuits, the following provisions shall be complied with: no statute of limitations is applied to disputes over property ownership; disputes over claim back of properties under others’ management or in others’ possession; disputes over land use rights in accordance with the land law. For disputes other than those, the statute of limitations for initiating a civil lawsuit is two years, counting from the date individuals, agencies or organizations become aware that their rights and legitimate interests are infringed upon as previous regulations.

The Law also amends some regulations to the open direction under the courts’ jurisdiction on  civil requests, accordingly, the request for declaration of notarized documents to be invalid and the request for determination of property ownership and use rights; division of common properties for enforcement of judgments in accordance with the law on enforcement of civil judgments.

Civil disputes falling under the courts’ jurisdiction are supplemented two types such as disputes related to requests for declaration of notarized documents to be invalid; disputes related to assets forfeited to enforce judgments in accordance with the law on enforcement of civil judgments.

When participating in civil procedures, the involved parties have the rights to make questions to other persons on matters related to the cases when so permitted by the courts or to propose to courts matters which need to be questioned on other persons; to confront each other or witnesses (the previous regulations only allowed involved parties to make questions to the court on matters needed to make questions to other persons; to confront each other or witnesses).

As also in this Law on amending and supplementing, there are some detailed regulations on procedures for receiving and considering petitions for review of legally effective court judgments or decisions according to cassation procedures, besides, a new procedure is added as “Special procedures for reviewing decisions of the Judges’ Council of the Supreme People’s Court”