Nitesh Jandial
According to Cambridge Dictionary, a person who is fighting a legal case is a litigant and “Litigant in Person” means an individual who is not represented in a court of law through an Advocate. He is a self representing Litigant who is appearing directly before the court without appointing an Advocate. So, when a party has to approach the court of law for enforcement of his legal rights or to defend himself, he can either appear in person or he has to appoint an Advocate who will represent him before the court but no one can go to court for someone else without a law license.
Problems Faced By Litigants in Person
The litigants appearing in person faces various difficulties and feel themselves at disadvantage, especially when they are appearing against an Advocate who is representing the opposite party. The lack of understanding of law and procedure adopted for enforcement of law can cause stress, worry and confusion and litigant in person may feel that pursuing their case in person is not worthful. The litigant in person may have little knowledge of the procedure but find it difficult to apply the rules even if they do read them and the opposite party can take advantage of this situation. Although the courts are aware of the difficulties experienced by litigants in person and assist them as far as possible at the time when they are appearing before the court but on the other hand expected that the litigants should understand the procedure adopted by the court and law and have less tolerance to non compliance with the procedure and law.
The litigant in person hardly knows the language and specialist vocabulary of legal proceedings. Without the legal knowledge and zero skills in Advocacy, the litigants in person are unable to undertake cross-examination and test the evidence of opposite party. Due to the lack of professionalism and emotional attachment with his own case, the litigant in person may become aggressive or emotional during the proceedings of the case which may cause harm in this way or that way to them which may result in initiation of contempt proceedings against him by the court.
The litigant in person often do not understand the interim orders and directions given by the court in regular hearings of the case. Sometimes the litigant in person may believe that if the opposite party has failed to comply with such direction then the opposite party should be prevented from defending or processing further and the case should be decided in his favour or the case should be dismissed.
Tips for Litigants in Person
What do a litigant need to know if he is going to represent himself before the court of law?
The litigant in person without any Law background and no knowledge of law, focus immediately on the evidence and not on law. For example, in a case of enforcement of contract, the parties have written contract and the opposite party doesn’t comply with his obligations as written in the contract and he believes that he will won the case, but it is not that simple as shows. The Law of Contract is highly complex and he may not have the right to enforce the contract just because the opposite party doesn’t comply with the terms of the contract.
In reality, there are three major elements for a case:
*The facts accompanied with Evidence
*Law
* Procedure
Before starting a legal proceedings in the court, the litigant in person must check the law thoroughly even if he is believing that he has the strong evidence for his case.
The procedural law whether civil or criminal is very vast, technical, complex and is very difficult to understand and learn by a non lawyer. The litigant in person must know the formats and procedure to present a case before the court or to defend the case and to file statements in his favour. He must know the time granted to him to file or defend a case. Thus, before starting a case, the litigant has to go through the procedure thoughrorly so that he can perform well if he has to appear as a Litigant in Person before the court of law.
(The author is advocate High Court of J&K Ex. Add. Standing Counsel Tourism Department Jammu)
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