Sententia Non Existens: Another voice in the debate on non-existent judgments

A judicial judgment constitutes a highly formalized procedural act, where compliance with statutory requirements ensures its correctness, i.e., its validity. Procedural violations in the issuance process, along with substantive or formal errors within the judgment, may serve as grounds for appeal or rectification. In certain cases, defects may be so severe that the judgment cannot be considered to exist at all (sententia non existens). The issue of non-existent judgments has long been a source of substantial debate and controversy within legal doctrine and jurisprudence, recently reignited, with heightened urgency, due to the CJEU’s case law. Hence, there arises a need to contribute to this crucial and complex discourse.