This new legal institution aims to address a long-standing procedural problem. Hungarian civil procedure already regulates the concept of suspension of proceedings, which prevents a pending case from continuing. Typical examples include chain invalidity lawsuits or proceedings involving a large number of plaintiffs and/or defendants. Suspension usually occurs for reasons directly affecting a party, most commonly the death of a party or the absence of a specific representative. As a result, such cases often fall into a timeless state. In many instances, the opposing party is not involving the legal successor in the proceedings, or the identity of the successor is unknown. When a lawsuit becomes stalled in this status, it cannot be terminated until the obstacle is removed, but it also cannot be continued, even if one of the parties would do so.
Under the amendments, the newly introduced institution of procedural limitation means that a suspended civil action will be terminated after 18 months. The new legislation allows for one exception, if a lawsuit or other procedure aimed at establishing the identity of the legal successor is pending. In such cases, the court must be notified within three months following the conclusion of that procedure that the suspended proceedings may be continued.
As a general rule, civil cases that were initiated earlier and remain suspended will be terminated by 1 July 2026. According to the explanatory memorandum attached to the legislation, this solution will make it possible to permanently remove a significant number of cases (in which no progress has been made in recent years) from the Hungarian judicial system.