La conformidad de decisiones en el Código de 1983

Abstract

Canon 1641 gathers together the various ways in which the formal effect of an adjudged matter can come about. This effect has priority and the material effect of the res iudicata totally depends on it. Therefore, the impossibility of right of appeal carries with it as a consequence the right of that which has been decided be put into effect since it has become an adjudged matter. In the canonical process the adjudged matter is a juridical institution directly based in the search for the truth, the most important reason for the process itself. This certainty is lawfully obtained by virtue of the two conforming judgements when this double conformity refers to the same action, constituted by the effective coincidence of the elements of the action. Moreover, the said action has to be fully identified in the lawsuit, and above all, in the legal summing up which determines the content of the sentence. With respect to the adjudged matter in cases concerning the status of persons, in spite of the exception established in Can. 1643, in fact in all instances when two conforming judgements have been made in this type of case the formal efrect and the material effect of the adjudged matter have been made operative anyway. When the said double conformity does not exist the presentation of a new proposition of the case not linked to new and serious arguments is possible. Nevertheless, the preclusion of double conformity ought to be extended to all cases in which there has been at least one decision made in the case (fundamentally the assumptions of numbers 2° and 3° of Canon 1641), so that greater juridical security would be assured in this type of case which, nonetheless, could always be reopened with new argumments with the purpose of preventing whatever possible injustice may have arisen from the unsoundeness of a previous decision. With regard to double conformity in matrimonial cases, this procedural principle is very closely linked to three other principles of Natural Law;