Like every other year, this year, as of July 15, there are judicial holidays that last until 15 August.
This means that during the time of a judicial holiday, the court will only conduct hearings in urgent matters. In the sense of the Courts Act, urgent matters are considered to be the issuance of provisional decisions, investigative acts, non-contentious and enforcement matters related to the education and protection of children, maintenance liabilities, and some others.
However, during the judicial holidays, procedural deadlines are not running, and court documents are not served. Procedural deadlines are the deadlines set for the execution of procedural acts. This means that during judicial holiday, for example, the deadline for the statement of defense (which is 30 days) does not run during this time and if the lawsuit was served on 8 July 2019, , the deadline for the statement of defence will expire on 9 September 2019, instead on 7 August 2019.
But attention – judicial holidays do not affect the running of material deadlines. Material deadlines are deadlines that determine when or by which time it is possible to assert some right and are defined in the material regulation. For example, the material deadline is in disputes arising from the disturbance of property, where the material provision explicitly stipulates that judicial protection against the disturbance of property can be requested within 30 days of the day when the owners learned about the disturbance and the perpetrator. This means that if you have been disturbed by someone in your possession and you learned about it and the perpetrator on 8 July 2019, you must file a lawsuit no later than 7 August 2019.
Watch out for your rights and find needed help in due time, so that you can also have a nice holiday.
