In civil procedural law, every person and/or legal entity who is being sued by the plaintiff in court, is called as defendant and to him/her will be granted the right to submit the response and objection on the petitum of the palintiff’s letter of claim (“Petitum”).
Objection is an efforts to block or to defense which submitted by the plaintiff on the Petitum. It is also can be interpreted as:
- Defendant response to the Petitum;
- The objection from defendant that addressed directly to the Petitum.
The essence of the objection on the Petitum, is the reason and affirmation that was intentionally made and stated by the plaintiff, either verbally or in writing in order to refute or deny the truth of the defendant’s argument which stated by the defendant in his/her reply. In other words, the objection to the Petitum is stated in the “defendant’s response” to deny the pleading argument of the plaintiff.
Technically, the case proceeding will conduct the cross examination process on court in accordance with Article 142 Rv which stated that both parties can submit a response letter and also the counterplea and the rebuttal.
In relation to the contain of the response, the defendant’s response can be classified as follow:
1. The response containing the confession (bekentenis);
The defendant is permitted and may give a response that containing confession on the half or the entire pleading argument of the plaintiff. The defendant must be aware that the confession on the pleading argument which mentioned in the response or the rebuttal is related to the authentication system. Until now, Article 164 HIR and Article 1866 KUH Perdata is still acknowledge the confession as evidence.
2. The response which deny the pleading argument;
This is the objection on the Petitum (verweer ten principale), the truth and the existance of the entire palintiff’s pleading argument is denied. In theory and in practice, the objection target is adressed into 2 (two) things, which are: (1) the truthfulness of the pleading argument and (2) the direction of the event or the law facts. Therefore, the defendants must prepare the evidences carefully and intelligently in the authentication process to support his/her objection on the plaintiff’s pleading arguments. As additional explanation, the objection on response can be submitted together with the exception. A response like these shall be formulate systematically to make it clear, which part is containing the exception and which part containing the objection to the Petitum. The purpose is for the judges’ convinience in studying it.
3. The response which not give confession or objection.
Other position that can be chosen by the defendant is to not confess and to not deny. The response is just containing a statement which state that the defendant is fully surrender the truth of the pleading to the judges (referte aan het oordel des rechters), so the defendant is fully surrender the evaluation on the truth of the pleading argument to the judges. In order for the defendant to conduct position like this, the defendant shall note that this position must be explain explicitly on the response, therefore the poistion to fully surrender the evaluation of the truth of the pleading argument to the discretion of the judge, cannot be implemented implicitly. On the other side, the judges is not permitted to evaluate this position from the defendant as a confession, therefore the defendant position cannot be used as an evidence to strengthen the pleading argument.
Ivan Ari
