paragraph 232 in volume 2, chapter 13, Matters of Jurisdiction
Article 79, paragraph 9 (formerly Article 67 (1972) and 79 (1978), paragraph 7) contains the major innovation of 1972. That provision retained the requirement that after a hearing the decision on preliminary objections should be in the form of a judgment. The long-standing option that the decision could be to join an objection to the merits was replaced by a new formula, that the Court’s decision could ‘declare that the objection does not possess, in the circumstances of the case, an exclusively prelimina…