Highlights

Recent Law No.191 of 2020 dated 5^th of September 2020 (“the Law”) establishes a new rule of law concerning the jurisdiction of courts of first instance, and more precisely it modifies the value criteria that divides the jurisdiction between different courts of first instance: the primary courts and the district courts.

It is worth mentioning that this amendment comes among a long road of amendments concerning the cases’ value criteria in civil and commercial procedure Law in its original text promulgated on the 7^th of May 1968.

The following note highlights the application, consequences and the effects of this Law.

Features of the Law

According to this Law a new value criteria has been established and will replace the ancient criteria starting from the 1^st of October 2020.This will lead to a new balance between the jurisdiction of both primary and district courts.

Three main rules have been modified by this Law according to its article:

• On one hand:

• On the other hand, the Law modifies the value criteria of cases deprived of the right of appeal:

Concerning the district courts, its decision shall be final i.e not entitled to right of appeal in the cases whose value does not exceed 15 000 pounds, replacing the previous rule “whose value does not exceed 5 000 pounds”.

Concerning the primary courts, the original value criteria rule has been replaced by a new one entitling the right of appeal to only decisions in cases exceeding the amount of 100 000 pounds, decisions in cases not exceeding the mentioned amount shall be final.

• The third modification concerns the value criteria of cases entitled to the right of appeal before the Court of Cassation: the ancient value of 100 000 pounds has been replaced by a new criteria of 250 000 pounds. Only the decisions in cases exceeding the mentioned amount will be granted the right to cassation appeal.

Scope of Application

This Law applies to all civil and commercial cases ruled before the common courts of first instance after its entry into force. Only 2 categories are excluded from the scope of application:

1. cases that have been definitively ruled.
2. cases that have been postponed for pronouncing the judgment before the date this law enters into force.

It is worth mentioning that the two above mentioned categories exempted from the scope of application remain subject to the rules regulating the methods of appeal in force at the date of their issuance.

 Entry into force

According to art. 4 of the Law, this amendment shall be enforced as of the first of October following its publication, i.e 1^st of October 2020.

 Consequences and effects

1. The immediate application:The Law in its article 3 provides the consequences and effects of its immediate application by mentioning that the courts- in order to abide to the new established value criteria-  shall transfer, without fees, and on their own initiative, the cases they have which became in the jurisdiction of other courts according to the provisions of this Law.
2. The notification of referral decision:The referral shall be to a hearing determined by the court, and the issuance of the referral decision is considered a notificationtion to the litigants who attended one of the sessions or submitted a memorandum of their defense, unless the sequence of sessions is interrupted for any reason after they attend or present the memorandum, then the clerk will notify the litigants by a registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt.

Aims and advantages of the law

1. This Law aims to improve justice efficiency by speeding up cases adjudications and facilitating litigation procedures: This is a direct effect to the new value criteria that reduce the numbers of decisions that will be entitled to the right of cassation appeal.
2. It also creates a new balance in cases’ distribution between courts of first instance that will lead to overcome the accumulations of cases before the courts.
3. Finally, this Law by updating the value criteria keeps the civil and commercial procedure law up to-date concerning the change in currency value after the currency liberation occurred in November 2016.

It is worth mentioning that this amendment comes after a series of amendment in civil and commercial procedure law issued in its original text in May 1968 and modified in 1980, 1992, 1999 and 2007 in order to pursue the same objective of following the currency value evolution.

This Article has been re-published by LexisNexis, you access it by following this link.