Chapter II: Of the Order of Cognitions

Judges and tribunals are held to hear causes brought before them in that order in which they were proposed, unless some one of them requires speedy expedition before the others, which indeed is to be established by a peculiar decree by the judge or by the tribunal.

§ 1. Dilatory exceptions, especially those which regard persons and the manner of trial, are to be proposed and heard before the joinder of issue, unless they first emerge after issue has already been joined, or a party affirms by oath that they became known to him only then.

§ 2. Nevertheless an exception concerning the absolute incompetence of the judge can be opposed by the parties in any state and grade of the cause.

§ 3. Likewise the exception of excommunication can be opposed in any state and grade of trial, provided it is before definitive sentence; indeed, if there is question of excommunicated persons to be avoided, or of tolerated persons against whom a condemnatory or declaratory sentence has been rendered, they must always be excluded from office.

§ 1. Peremptory exceptions which are called of a finished lawsuit, such as the exception of a judged matter, transaction, etc., must be proposed and heard before the joinder of issue; he who has opposed them later is not to be rejected, but is to be condemned in expenses, unless he proves that he did not maliciously delay the opposition.

§ 2. Other peremptory exceptions must be proposed after issue has been joined, and are to be treated in their own time according to the rules concerning incidental questions.

§ 1. Reconventional actions can preferably be proposed immediately after the joinder of issue, usefully at any moment of the trial, yet before sentence.

§ 2. They are to be heard together with the conventional action, that is, in an equal grade with it, unless it is necessary to hear them separately or the judge has judged it more opportune.

Questions concerning security to be furnished for judicial expenses or concerning the concession of gratuitous advocacy, which had been sought immediately from the beginning, and other things of this kind are regularly to be seen before the joinder of issue.

Whenever, after the principal controversy has been proposed, a prejudicial question arises, that is, one of such a kind that the solution of the principal question depends on its solution, that question must be heard by the judge before all else.

§ 1. If incidental questions arise from the principal controversy, those whose solution prepares the way for the solution of others are to be heard first.

§ 2. But if they cohere with one another by no logical connection, those which were proposed earlier by either party are to be defined first.

§ 3. If a question concerning spoliation arises incidentally, this must be settled before all else.