Between party autonomy and inequality compensation

This paper focuses on the impact of the (increasing) possibility for parties in Dutchcivil cases to litigate without the guidance of a legal aid provider on Dutch civilprocedure. It analyses the extent to which such self-representation influences therole of the judge in the context of Dutch subdistrict court procedures, whererepresentation is not mandatory. Through empirical data, collected through semi-structured interviews with 26 subdistrict judges, more insight is gained into thedilemmas that the lack of representation of parties presents to judges, and the waysin which they deal with these dilemmas. The interviews show how judges seek abalance between their role as neutral arbitrator in a dispute and a more active rolenecessitated by parties not being represented by a legal aid provider. In doing so,they navigate between process and content. Within this dynamic, judges mustconstantly balance the trade-off between acting more actively to gather sufficientinformation for a substantive handling and assessment of the case, on the one hand,and safeguarding the limits of party autonomy and their own (perceived) neutrality,on the other. Full party autonomy is viewed by judges as unrealistic and, moreover,contrary to truth-finding.