Service of process is the procedure employed to give legal notice to a person (such as a defendant) of a court or administrative body‘s exercise of its jurisdiction over that person so as to enable that person to respond to the proceeding before the court, body or other tribunal.
Usually, notice is furnished by delivering a set of court documents to the person to be served.
Rules of Service
In England and Wales, the rules governing service of documents are contained within the Civil Procedure Rules.
In Scotland, hand service of legal documents must be carried out by a qualified Officer of Court: “process servers” are not recognised by the Scottish judiciary.
Other countries have their own rules for process. Many have signed-up to the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extra-Judicial Documents in Civil and Commercial Matters, more commonly called the Hague Service Convention.
It is a multilateral treaty which was signed in The Hague (Netherlands) in 1965 by members of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It allows service of judicial documents from one signatory nation to another without the burden of following diplomatic channels.
The Hague Service Convention was designed:
- to provide a simpler way to serve process abroad,
- to assure that defendants sued in foreign jurisdictions would receive actual and timely notice of suit, and
- to facilitate proof of service abroad.
The Convention is a highly regarded and very functional treaty which facilitates the exchange of thousands of service requests annually between member nations.
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