Facts
The case concerns a dispute between a tenant (the appellant) and a landlord (the respondent) regarding the eviction of the tenant from the rented property. The landlord had terminated the tenancy agreement on an extraordinary basis on 12 November 2014. In response, the tenant filed a request for termination protection with the conciliation authority on 18 December 2014. Despite these pending termination protection proceedings, the landlord filed a request for eviction in summary proceedings under Art. 257 CPC on 9 January 2015. The Commercial Court granted this request, prompting the tenant to file a complaint with the Federal Supreme Court.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court holds that a request for eviction in summary proceedings under Art. 257 CPC is generally admissible even if the tenant has judicially challenged the preceding extraordinary termination for non-payment of rent and the resulting tenancy law proceedings have not yet been finally resolved.
The Federal Supreme Court justifies this view by stating that when enacting the Code of Civil Procedure, the legislature had abolished the previously applicable rule on the coordination of termination challenge and eviction. Apparently, it assumed that the validity of the termination could be decided as a preliminary issue in the eviction proceedings under Art. 257 CPC, in order to avoid a delay in the eviction by awaiting the outcome of the tenancy law termination…