Should the court determine the objective truth?

 

The Plenum of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan made the decision "on interpretation of the VII part of the Article 125 of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan in terms of civil procedure legislation of the Republic of Azerbaijan" (hereinafter: the Decision) on 18 March 2019. The main issues that have been clarified in the Decision are about the extent which the court should consider the case, in particular, whether objective or formal truth should be determined by the court when considering the case.

The Constitutional Court, stated in its judgment that, according to the current legislation of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the principle of determination of the truth by the court referred to in Article 125 § VII of the Constitution of the Republic of Azerbaijan should be applied in accordance with the adversarial principle during the proceedings. According to the decision, judges should ensure the adversarial principle on court disputes, and should judge the case only within the evidence gathered by the parties, and according to the circumstances of the case, and make a decision in accordance with those evidence.

Thus, in court proceedings on civil and economic cases, the court should determine the truth based on the evidence and facts presented by the parties.