The article attempts to analyse the relationship between the power of defence as enjoyed by the parties in a civil trial and the possible modes of action. Within the scope of this power, the defence of rights in a jurisdictional process appears as a so-called ‘procedural (pleading) burden’ and not as some ‘right’ or ‘duty’. It has been shown that entering into the defence of one’s rights is a burden and not a duty, i.e. the parties (both the defendant and the plaintiff) neither towards the court nor towards the opponent are obliged to do so, but can only do so in their own interest. The failure of the parties to comply with the procedural burden only entails the loss of the benefit associated with active participation in the process and cannot be coerced, thus it is not subject to any sanctions that procedural law associates with the failure to comply with the procedural duty. An analysis was made of the various types of burdens occurring in a civil trial, including against a comparative legal background, namely the burden of: (a) initiating a trial, (b) justifying it, (c) instructing it, (d) citing it and (e) defending it, and attention was drawn to the occurring procedural exceptions to the burden of citing. Finally, an attempt is made to describe descriptively what the possibility of defence by means of pleading (procedural) burdens consists of.
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