Replacing an improper defendant

As a general rule, the sides of a court hearing, whether the proceedings are taking place in a general jurisdiction court or in an arbitrage court, are the plaintiff and the defendant.

Individuals, companies, or government agencies may find themselves as case defendants.

In bringing a lawsuit to court, as procedural law requires, the plaintiff names a certain person or entity as the defendant.

Due to the complex structure and grand variety of legislative norms that exist, the plaintiff isn’t always quite capable of properly determining the defendant. For this reason, a lawsuit may initially be brought against the wrong defendant, in other words against a party that is not a participant in the dispute relations, or, even if he or she is a participant, cannot be made into a defendant but only a third party.

For the purposes of delivering justice within a reasonable amount of time and resolving court cases in a timely fashion, legislators have introduced into procedural law the mechanism of improper defendant replacement.

If during the case preparation stage or during the court process, it comes to light that a lawsuit has been brought against the improper defendant, the court, instead of returning the lawsuit, proposes to the plaintiff to replace the improper defendant with the proper one. This replacement is also possible via motion from the plaintiff himself.

It’s worth mentioning that by replacement of the defendant upon the proposal of a court is only possible given the plaintiff’s consent. If the plaintiff doesn't agree to this replacement, the court shall examine the case based on the lawsuit brought by the plaintiff.

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