Right to take legal action

Right to take legal action is a right that a person can litigate in his/her own name as a party. There are two types of right to take legal action;(i) litigation in one's own name and behalf, (ii) representative action. In procedural law, litigation in one's own name and behalf is basically an equivalent of rightholder's power of disposition in substantive law. Representative action which is an exclusive status of right to take a legal action is more important and problematic. In this case, nominal party who is not a rightholder or obligant but still he/she takes an action in his/her own name. When a representative action occurs a tripartite relation is established between rightholder/obligant, nominal party and opposite party. In representative action parties are nominal party and opposite party, connected with procedural relation. Between nominal party and rightholder/obligant there is an internal relation which legitimate for the nominal party to take an action in rightholder's behalf. Representative action creates numbers of problems in procedural law. In this study fundamental consequences of these problems are examined. Two of these fundamental consequences are lis pendence and res judicata. Representative action grounds on a statutory provision. In Turkish law there are numbers of provisions for representative action. In this study, we tried to determine the implemetations of representative action and to examine its characteristics. Keywords: Right to take legal action, litigation in one's own name and behalf, representative action.