Separation of Cases in Civil Proceedings

 Compound litigations, which consist in the multiplicity of litigants, the multiplicity of claims, or both, compel the court to first decide whether to merge or separate the elements they are made up of. If the conditions for the merger of the lawsuits are not met or if after the merger, the court determines that they no longer need to be subjected to a joint proceeding, it will decide to separate the lawsuits. So far, separation and the rejection of merger has not been discussed in detail and independently in Iranian literature, and it is typically viewed as an ancillary subject, meaning that the focus has been on merging or consolidating litigation and the issue of separation of claims has been brought about only as an ancillary matter. There is nothing wrong in this approach per se, but its effect can be that some aspects of litigation, including issues related to the causes and procedures of litigation, will not be studied properly. In order to solve this problem, before dealing with the procedures of separating lawsuits based on their respective types, this article will explore, quite in detail, the causes of lawsuits. The question here will be why it is possible to separate lawsuits and why this should be done. The analysis of the relevant legal rules shows that the separation is mandated by law in some cases and at the discretion of the court in others. According to this study, two general bases for the separation of lawsuits could be found: discretionary or judicial, and compulsory or legal. The first involves the cases where the judge discerns that there are no theoretical foundations for the merger of lawsuits and that the continuation of the trial as a joint proceeding is undesirable. The second consists in the legislator's response to the abuse of rules and to attempts to divert the proceedings. Separation of lawsuits in the general sense include unraveling, or deciding not to merge, lawsuits and to stop their proceeding in the merged state. In the specific sense, separation involves only to dissociate lawsuits already merged. At first glance, the term "separation of lawsuits" refers to a situation in which the court first decides to merge the lawsuits and subsequently, when the co-trial process is under way , for some reason, either the law or the court finds the dissociation of lawsuits as possible or necessary. The reason may be that the court is ready to render its judgment on a part of the lawsuits, that the factor compelling the joint proceedings stops to exist, or  secondary reasons involving the violation of the principle of good faith or of rules of procedure if merger is allowed. Both general and specific senses of the separation of claims will be studied in the present article. After examining the reasons for the separation of lawsuits, the article will deal, in its second part, with the rules governing the procedure of separation of connected or combined lawsuits. It should be noted that when the separation of cases, as one of the administrative arrangements of the proceedings, is concerned, the separated cases should be managed in such a way that their proceedings do not face procedural challenges that delay the process. In his decision over separating lawsuits or rejecting mergers, the judge must, in addition to taking account of the litigants’ preferences and engaging them in the decision making, pay attention to the procedural results of separating lawsuits and its impact on the quality and efficiency of the proceedings. The purpose of adopting arrangements such as separating lawsuits or declining the merger must be to maintain the quality and efficiency of litigation and to simplify lawsuits. As a result, the judge must always evaluate the consequences of using this mechanism and its impact on the course of the proceedings. Prescription of this duty in laws will urge judges to take it more seriously and oblige them to present an argument for their decisions. As a result, in studying how to separate lawsuits, it is necessary to clarify the reasons for it and the desirable degree of intervention of the law, the courts and the litigants and the rules governing each’s role. As the article will argue, Article 65 of the Civil Procedure Act constitutes a turning point in the Iranian procedural system  in terms of the authority granted to the court in administration of the lawsuit; Given this, the next step in terms of enhancing the administrative capacity of the courts in connection to the procedural rules of compound litigation should be to leave further evaluation of the possibility of separation  to the court. After the lawsuit is referred to a court, the judge will decide, as an administrative measure, and by briefly reviewing the claim and considering factors including the presence of a common basis in the lawsuits and, more generally, the level of their connection, whether to accept the merger of the lawsuits or separate their proceedings. Paying attention to the litigants’ preferences and obtaining their opinions before separating the lawsuits is compatible with the new approaches in procedural law, because proper judgments is not possible without effective, lawful and conscientious participation of the litigants. This is particularly vital in proceedings containing compounding elements, as they involve grounds for deviation in the proceedings and the reduction of its quality, and the law has to respond the judge’s violation of this duty with strict sanctions. At the same time, the possibility of independent objections to the court’s decision on the separation will inadmissibly hamper the proceedings . Naturally, the purpose of such research is to clarify the various aspects of litigation, to develop knowledge of civil procedural law, and ultimately to improve judicial procedure. Toward this goal and in collecting the relevant data, descriptive-applied method and library resources have been employed.