Summary adjudication

Abstract

The 1987 World Congress on Procedural Law had as its main theme: ‘Justice and Efficiency’. One of the general reports was entitled: ‘Use and Abuse of Summary Proceedings’.2 Today, 10 years later, the scholarly attention to the subject of accelerated or expedited proceedings is still as important as at that time. Dutch legal practice shows an increase in the use of this kind of proceedings while the number of ordinary procedures on the merits which last longer and longer, decreases.3 In Dutch law judicial procedures are characterised by their adversarial nature and written form. If the debtor defends the case a usually time-consuming procedure follows. Accelerated proceedings, if available, offer a well-accepted alternative to the ordinary procedures on the merits. One can even speak of a development in which some procedures for provisional measures, like interim injunction procedures: kort geding at the rechtbank (district court) and voorlopige voorzieningen at the kantongerecht (subdistrict court), are increasingly adopting the characteristics of an accelerated procedure; these provisional proceedings are de facto final since they are no longer followed by a procedure on the merits. These interim procedures are frequently used as a placebo for accelerated proceedings. Accelerated proceedings in the proper sense of this term are hardly known in the Dutch law of civil procedure and are rarely used in practice.