Essays of Faculty of Law University of Pécs Yearbook of 2013

(...) Dilatory tactics are often the main cause of undue delay. To prevent them, legal systems - regardless of time and place - have searched for appropriate solutions. In our opinion, to solve the problem adequately we have to scrutinize and analyze the whole process leading to the use of dilatory tactics in detail. Two features should be distinguished: on the one side the intentions of the parties and their lawyers, and, on the other side, their procedural potential for causing delay. In our paper we try to prove that, in the absence of one of these two requirements, dilatory tactics will not be used, and to this end we have examined both. First, we scrutinized the reasons that may lead the parties or their representatives to protract the procedure and then we moved to the other side of the formula to examine how dilatory tactics work and, consequently, how this could be influenced. In this context we tried to identify the reasons why such tactics can influence procedure in one country more than in another. Undue delay in litigation can occur for various reasons - for example, the overwhelming caseload of the courts, a lack of human and other resources and the inappropriate preparation and concentration of trials. Among the reasons, special attention should be paid to the use of dilatory tactics by the parties and their lawyers, which can cause significant delays, even in those countries where the average duration of proceedings is satisfactory. In countries where civil proceedings are less vulnerable to dilatory tactics, it can also substantially increase the average duration of proceedings. The dilatory behaviour of parties and their lawyers is independent of age and geographical location, since - in our view - it arises always and everywhere for identical reasons. In the present study we rely on the assumption that dilatory tactics are used by the parties and their lawyers only if intent and opportunity meet. In the absence of either, these tactics are not applied. In cases where — although it could be in the power of the parties to delay the proceedings - they are not interested in doing so, they will not use such tactics. This is also the case where the parties or their lawyers are interested in delay, but - because of the lack of appropriate means in that jurisdiction - they are unable to do so.