Abstract

ABSTRACT:

A sometimes forgotten, distinct stage of the judicial process in canon law is the discussion of the cause. Its object—the presentation and exchange of argumention—was envisioned and treated in the commentaries of medieval canonists, but it only came to be regulated in the general legislation of the Church in the nineteenth century. Its detailed regulation especially in the proper law of the Apostolic Signatura and the Roman Rota gave birth to a more explicit regulation in the general legislation brought into being in the twentieth century: in the 1917 CIC and the parallel Eastern law (Sollicitudinem Nostram) and finally in the law currently in force in the CIC and CCEO. The supreme legislator thus prescribes that in diocesan and inter-diocesan tribunals, provision is to be made for the discussion of the cause, entailing the presentation of argumentation, the distribution or exchange of arguments, the presentation and distribution of replies, and the right of certain parties to make a final reply in certain causes. Various elements of the discussion are to be governed also by the particular regulations or statutes of individual tribunals.

pdf

Share