Pluralidade de partes nas ações de alimentos : aspectos materiais e processuais do Art. 1.698 do Código Civil

Abstract

Article 1.698 of the Civil Code creates two new possibilities of plurality of parties on the passive pole of the action regarding alimony without defining their nature and legal discipline. This essay proposes, facing the obscurity of the law, an interpretation capable of guaranteeing effectiveness without disrespecting constitucional procedural rights. It adopts the instrumentality of the process and the submission of civil and procedural laws to the Constitucion as the bases to study article 1.968, and it shows the proximity between joinders and third-party intervention with the search of procedural economy and harmony of judgements – and, consequently, with the achievement of a real and effective solution to the conflict, not only to the process. Further, it contextualizes the creation of article 1.698 of the Civil Code/2002 and examines it under it’s substantive and procedural aspects, highlighting the two different possibilities of plurality of parties on the passive pole of the action and analysing them separately. The essay faces primarily the problem regardind the plurality of parties based on the last sentence of article 1.698. To this purpose, it compares the new law to the known forms of third-party intervention contained in the Civil Procedural Code, according to the most influent scholars, without ruling out the acknowledgment of a new form of thir-party intervention created by the Civil Code itself. It also verifies if the final part of article 1.698 can be inserted in the definition of compulsory joinder and, acknowledging that, presents its discipline. The essay performs a bibliographic review and a research into the jurisprudence of the Superior Court of Justice and of the State-Courts from Southeast Region, and also a field research in Vila Velha and Vitória’s Court Houses, in order to observe the consequences of the legal obscurity and confirms the need of a satisfactory answer to the central issue of the essay. At last, it presents the perspectives regarding the new developments of article 1.698 of the Civil Code in confrontation with new forms of families and with the new face of civil procedure.