Civil procedure is based on clear logic: the court only examines evidence that is relevant to the specific dispute. The Code of Civil Procedure stipulates that only evidence that confirms or refutes circumstances relevant to the case is admissible. At first glance, this seems like a simple and rational rule. However, in practice, the opposite often happens—the essence of the case gets lost in a sea of documents, and the process of proving the case turns into a complex procedural maze. As noted by Dainius Antanaitis, a lawyer with the AVOCAD professional association of lawyers , it is at this stage that the problem of the limits of proof most often becomes apparent.
“Evidence in a civil case is not just any information. It consists solely of facts regarding the circumstances that form the subject matter of the proof. The latter includes legal facts to which the law links the creation, modification, or termination of the disputed legal relationship, as well as facts on which the parties’ claims and defenses are based, and other circumstances necessary for the application of substantive law provisions,” the attorney notes, citing the practice of the Supreme Court. According to Dainius Antanaitis, the presentation of evidence in civil proceedings is not a process of gathering or archiving information. “Its purpose is to help the court establish specific, legally significant factual circumstances upon which the rendering of a just decision depends,” states the AVOCAD attorney.
In every civil case, the subject of proof depends on what right or legitimate interest the claimant is defending. In debt cases, the existence of an obligation and its non-fulfillment are proven; in cases of compensation for damages, unlawful actions, the fact of damage, causal link, and fault are proven; in cases of contesting transactions, the grounds for invalidating the transaction are proven, etc. This means that only evidence that can logically confirm or refute these circumstances should be admitted to the case.
According to the lawyer, in practice, lower courts exhibit different styles of adjudication. “In most cases, courts adhere to the requirements of the Code of Civil Procedure and, already at the stage of admitting evidence, help the parties to the proceedings avoid confusion by providing reasoned refusals to admit material unrelated to the dispute. However, there are also cases where documents or other information are admitted to the case that, neither as a whole nor in parts, have any logical connection to the subject matter of the evidence,” the attorney notes. In such cases, the case becomes overburdened with a large volume of material that adds no value to the fair resolution of the dispute. As a result, the court, already facing a heavy workload, is forced to spend time analyzing documents unrelated to the case.
"When the process turns into information storage rather than purposeful evaluation of facts, the efficiency of the process suffers, and as a result, the parties to the case are forced to wait unreasonably long," notes attorney D. Antanaitis.
Additional challenges arise when, at the request of one party, the court requests documents from the other party to the case. This instrument is particularly important in cases where one party is objectively unable to obtain relevant evidence held by the other party. However, practice shows that this procedural measure is sometimes misused.
There are situations where requests to obtain documents are based not on the desire to prove specific circumstances of a dispute, but on the desire to obtain information that could become the basis for a new dispute or allow access to data that could not be obtained by legal means. In such cases, if the court does not critically assess the connection between the request and the subject matter of the evidence, it may indirectly contribute to the unfair use of the process.
"The court should not become a means of intelligence gathering or testing hypothetical assumptions. Civil proceedings are intended to resolve legal disputes that have already arisen, not to create conditions for gathering information for possible future lawsuits," emphasizes D. Antanaitis.
This position is consistently upheld by higher courts. Appeal practice has clearly established that documents are only requested when they are directly related to the subject matter of a particular case. If a lawsuit is filed solely to verify whether rights may have been violated in general, such procedural conduct is considered flawed. The court is not an institution designed to collect data or verify assumptions—its purpose is to restore the violated legal balance and resolve the actual dispute.
This practice reminds us once again that the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code regarding the admissibility of evidence are not a mere formality. They are an essential procedural guarantee that protects the interests of both the court and the parties to the proceedings and ensures that the search for justice does not get lost in the maze of evidence.