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THE HAGUE CONVENTION
ON INTERNATIONAL PROCESS SERVICE
What is the Convention?
The
Hague Convention on international process service
is a mechanism to allows for the service of papers
issued from the court in one county on the Recipient in another.
The
Convention only applies to countries that have signed up
to it. For those countries it facilitates a method of
service that is more difficult to challenge in the court
of origin.
The issue of whether a
particular set of documents MUST be served through Hague
Convention will be governed by the laws of the country
WHERE THEY ORIGINATE.
The methodology is quite
straight forward in as much that you sent the court
papers together with the appropriate Hague procedural
documents to the Central Authority designated to accept
them in the country in which they are to be served. Once
they have been served by an assigned official, normally
an officer of the court, they will be sent back to you
with a Hague Certificate of Service.
How it works - in reality
This procedure sounds
simple and efficient, but is it?
Many international lawyers
who have been involved in the Hague procedure will
confirm experiences of ludicrous bureaucracy, lack of
communication, horrendous delays and gross incompetence.
Many have experienced: -
Original Papers being
lost in the system and not surfacing for months and
sometimes never. -
Papers being returned
without being served without explanation. -
Papers being returned
without being served for dubious reasons. -
Papers being returned
without being served after many months. -
No communication
whatsoever on the progress of the serve.
-
Information on the
progress of the serve being impossible to obtain. -
Papers being
incorrectly served.
-
The wrong person being
served. -
The wrong papers being
served.
-
Court hearing and
trial dates being missed. -
The procedure nearly
always taking at least 2 months or more
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