What issues are procedural?

• By initiating the action before the forum court
  Court
  A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
  
  , the plaintiff
  Plaintiff
  A plaintiff , also known as a claimant or complainant, is the term used in some jurisdictions for the party who initiates a lawsuit before a court...
  
   is asking for the grant of the local remedies. This will not be a problem so long as the form of the relief is broadly similar to the relief available under the lex causae
  Lex causae
  In the conflict of laws, lex causae is the law or laws chosen by the forum court from among the relevant legal systems to arrive at its judgement of an international or interjurisdictional case....
  
  , i.e. the law selected under the choice of law
  Choice of law
  Choice of law is a procedural stage in the litigation of a case involving the conflict of laws when it is necessary to reconcile the differences between the laws of different legal jurisdictions, such as sovereign states, federated states , or provinces...
  
   rules. But forum courts may refuse a remedy in two situations:

if the effect of granting the relief sought would offend against the public policy

Public policy (law)

In private international law, the public policy doctrine or ordre public concerns the body of principles that underpin the operation of legal systems in each state. This addresses the social, moral and economic values that tie a society together: values that vary in different cultures and change...

 of the forum court;

if the effect of the relief would be so different from that available under the lex causae that it makes the right sought to be enforced a different right. For example, in English law

English law

English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...

, the court was asked in Phrantzes v Argenti [1960] 2 QB 19 to enforce a Greek

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 marriage

Marriage (conflict)

In conflict of laws, the issue of marriage has assumed increasing public policy significance in a world of increasing multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-national relationships...

 dowry

Dowry

A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...

 agreement. Although the forum had no public policy objections and agreed that such agreements were enforceable, relief was denied because there were no local rules to calculate the amount to be paid. A different result would have been achieved if the agreement had stipulated a liquidated sum to be paid. Thus, in Shahnaz v Rizwan [1965] 1 QB 390, a deferred mahr

Mahr

In Islam, mahr is an amount of money paid by the groom to the bride at the time of marriage which she can spend as she wishes. The English concept of "dower", the gift of funds to the wife in the event she becomes widowed, closely approximates mahr. The terms "dowry" and "bride price" are...

 (dowry) was enforced as part of an ante-nuptual agreement made in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 in consideration of marriage at a time when ante-nuptial agreements were not generally enforceable under English law. The judge accepted the difference between maintenance

Alimony

Alimony is a U.S. term denoting a legal obligation to provide financial support to one's spouse from the other spouse after marital separation or from the ex-spouse upon divorce...

 and a dowry, and enforced payment as a right ex contractu

Ex contractu

Ex contractu, Latin for "from a contract," is a legal term that indicates a consequence of a contract. Ex contractu is often to denote the source of a legal action ....

rather than as a matrimonial right. Hence, a remedy was granted to enforce a right in personam

In personam

In personam is a Latin phrase meaning "directed toward a particular person". In a lawsuit in which the case is against a specific individual, that person must be served with a summons and complaint to give the court jurisdiction to try the case, and the judgment applies to that person and is called...

, enforceable by the wife or widow against the husband or his heirs. The same result is achieved in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, see Aziz v. Aziz [1985] where a New York court enforced a deferred mahr of $5,000 because the terms of the contract complied with New York's General Obligations Law. The court rejected the husband's claim that it was a matrimonial action.

• The local law determines who can sue and be sued as parties to the action. The case law on this question is not very consistent. For example, the English court held in Banque Internationale de Commerce de Petrograd v Goukassow [1923] 2 KB 682 that a dead person cannot be a party to an action even though this was possible under the lex causae. However, if a foreign entity has legal personality under the law where it was established, it can be a party to English proceedings. Thus, in Bumper Development Corp. v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [1991] 1 WLR 1362 an Indian temple that was "little more than a pile of stones" could be a party.
• All questions of evidence
  Evidence (law)
  The law of evidence encompasses the rules and legal principles that govern the proof of facts in a legal proceeding. These rules determine what evidence can be considered by the trier of fact in reaching its decision and, sometimes, the weight that may be given to that evidence...
  
   to determine the admissibility and probative value of evidence and whether a witness is competent, are dealt with under the lex fori, except that presumptions, both rebuttable
  Rebuttable presumption
  Both in common law and in civil law, a rebuttable presumption is an assumption made by a court, one that is taken to be true unless someone comes forward to contest it and prove otherwise. For example, a defendant in a criminal case is presumed innocent until proved guilty...
  
   and irrebuttable, are usually rules of substance. In some cases, the application of the lex fori makes sense after all, if the forum rules require legal documents to be printed in a twelve-point font
  Font
  In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
  
  , and the choice of law state requires the same documents to be printed in a fourteen-point font, it makes little sense to require the court to determine which font size should be used in a choice of law dispute. However, many contentious cases have centred on findings that issues such as the burdens of proof, the admissibility of evidence, and statutes of limitations are procedural rather than substantive, because these rules can change the outcome of a case.
• In the Law of Contract
  Contract (conflict)
  In the conflict of laws, the validity of a contract with one or more foreign law elements will be decided by reference to the so-called "proper law" of the contract.-History:...
  
   Article 10(c) EC Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations
  Rome Convention (contract)
  The Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations 1980 is a measure in private international law or conflict of laws which aims to create at least a harmonised, if not a unified, choice of law system in contracts within the European Union...
  
   (Rome 1980) provides that the assessment of damages
  Damages
  In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
  
   is a matter for the lex causae. In other cases, the cause of action will give rise to issues that are both procedural and substantive. For example, in tort
  Tort (conflict)
  In conflict of laws, the choice of law rules for tort are intended to select the lex causae by which to determine the nature and scope of the judicial remedy to claim damages for loss or damage suffered.-History:...
  
   questions of remoteness and causation will be determined by the lex causae whereas the quantification of damages will be determined by the lex fori.
• The status of statutes of limitations is usually regarded as having public policy implications, particularly where foreign periods are either very long or very short. In extreme cases, the lex fori will be applied to protect the interests of vulnerable parties, e.g. the English court held in Jones v Trollope Colls Cementation, The Times, January 26, 1990 that a foreign limitation period of twelve months would be ignored because the plaintiff had spent a significant proportion of this time in hospital and had been led to believe her claim would be met. In the U.S., statutes of limitations would normally be considered procedural, but most states have enacted so-called borrowing statute
  Borrowing statute
  A borrowing statute, in United States law, is a statute under which one state may "borrow" a shorter statute of limitations for a cause of action arising in another state. The purpose of borrowing statutes is to prevent plaintiffs from engaging in forum shopping in order to find the longest...
  
  s, which "borrow" the statute of limitations for the cause of action from the state in which the cause of action arose.
• The lex fori determines whether a foreign judgment can be recognised and, if so, how it will be enforced, e.g. what property belonging to the defendant
  Defendant
  A defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute...
  
   may be taken to satisfy the judgment (see enforcement of foreign judgments
  Enforcement of foreign judgments
  In law, the enforcement of foreign judgments is the recognition and enforcement in one jurisdiction of judgments rendered in another jurisdiction...
  
  ). But in the Law of Contract, this is subject to Article 10 of the Rome Convention 1980 which provides that the applicable law governs the consequences of breach, including the quantification of damages.