Legal Dissertation on the Abstinence of Natural Law from the Fallacious Rules of the Putative Summary Process

§. 15. Nor does it hinder us that the response is thus broken off indirectly and respectively—namely, with respect to contumacy—and that therefore, before this contumacy is established, it is necessarily required that the defendant respond. For when we investigate why those rules concerning the summary process fail so commonly—to the point that it must almost be referred to as a being of reason—we demonstrate this primarily: that under the cloak of the Law of Nature these things are only treated in such a way, and that the result is that a particular process is always formed concerning the contestation of the suit or the so-called summary response. This is often just as long-lasting as the entire handling of the principal cause. For we are not speaking of exceptions legal objections or defenses, which in this place are primarily confused with the response the defendant's formal reply, for those must be heard at all times because of the nature of the business, even in the customary process, sometimes even in the very execution. But further, it will be said how many infinite questions are treated and mingled regarding the contestation of the suit or the so-called summary response, and what the head of the business is—namely, the order of proceeding, so that the response should precede, and only then the proof of the plaintiff be admitted, Chapter "Quamvis frequenter", "Ut litis non contestatio", and before one reaches this, so many questions are determined, while it is the nature of defendants to flee. We satisfy ourselves by having demonstrated against this that such a response is not of the necessity of the Law of Nature, but by the power of this, the judge can rather immediately require proof of the assertion from the assertor, so that he does not listen to anyone asserting, whether it be the plaintiff or the defendant, unless he is provided with proof incontinently. For if this were done, such a great process could hardly be imagined, which must undoubtedly be counted among the most miserable disasters and most pernicious miseries of the commonwealths, which the response of Saint Remigius to the first King of Gaul regarding the question of how long the Kingdom of Gaul would last illustrates further, for he responded that all these things depend on the administration of justice.