NOTICE OF THE SUPREME PEOPLE'S COURT, THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE CONCERNING CERTAIN QUESTIONS ON THE MUTUAL SERVICE OF LEGAL DOCUMENTS THROUGH DIPLOMATIC CHANNELS BETWEEN THE LAW COURTS OF THE PRC AND THE LAW COURTS OF FOREIGN COUNTRIES
14 August 1986
To: All relevant law courts of China, all Chinese embassies and consulates in foreign countries
Where, at present, there is no existing bilateral agreement between China and a particular foreign country, the service of legal documents concerning foreign-related civil, economic and other cases are conducted through diplomatic channels according to the principle of reciprocity. As there were, in the past, relatively few legal documents which required to be served, no unified set of regulations were laid down. Following the implementation of our country's open policy, the amount of legal documents concerning foreign-related civil, economic and other cases which need to be served outside China has been on the rise. In order to cope with the changing conditions and having identified some of the problems in the service of legal documents in the past, the present Notice is hereby issued in accordance with relevant provisions stipulated in the "Civil Procedure Law (for Trial Implementation)" of our country, with a view to clarifying certain questions on the mutual service of legal documents through diplomatic channels be- tween the law courts of our state and the law courts of foreign countries, which is required for foreign- related civil, economic and other cases. The rules are as follows.
1. The law courts of the countries with diplo- matic relations with China shall, when authorizing, through diplomatic channels, our law courts to serve legal documents on our citizens or legal persons, or persons of a third state or stateless persons in China, adhere to the principle of reciprocity, and process according to the procedures and requirements stated hereunder, unless otherwise specified by agreements concluded between China and the countries in question.
(a) Legal documents shall be delivered by the embassy or consulate of the country in question to the Consular Department of the Minstry of Foreign Af- fairs of the PRC for onward transmission to the relevant higher people's court. The higher people's court shall designate the relevant intermediate peo- ple's court to serve the said documents on the party concerned. After the party concerned has signed on the certificate of service as acknoledgement of receipt. the intermediate people's court shall return the signed
certificate to the higher people's court which shall then return it to the authorizing party through the Consular Department of the Minstry of Foreign Af- fairs. Where no cerfificate of service is attached, the relevant intermediate people's court shall provide an attestation of service to the relevant higher people's court which shall in turn deliver the attestation to the authorizing party through the Consular Department of the Minstry of Foreign Affairs.
(b) Letter of authorization shall be used for authorizing the service of legal documents. All such letters and accompanying legal documents shall be served with Chinese translations attached.
(c) Legal documents with contents detrimental to the sovereignty or security of our state shall be rejected; where the person on whom a legal document is to be served is entitled to diplomatic privilege or diplomatic immunity, the legal document is generally not accepted for service; where a legal document may not be served for reason of its being out of the jurisdictuion of China's law courts, or unclear address of the person the legal document is intended for, or any other reasons, the relevant higher people's court shall give an opinion on how the matter may be handled or clearly state the reason for the unsuccessful service, and the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shall then be responsible for re- turning, with explanation, the legal document to the authorizing party.
2. Foreign embassies and consulates in China may serve legal documents directly on their nationals in China provided that such documents are not detri- mental to the sovereignty or security of our state and no coercive measures are to be adopted. If an author- izing party wishes to authorize the law courts of our state, through diplomatic channels, for the service of legal documents on their nationals in China, it may do so in accordance with the stipulations as set out in Rule 1.
3. Where a country refuses to carry out the service of legal documents authorized by the law courts of our state or imposes special restrictions thereupon, appropriate measures may be taken by our state in the light of circumstances.
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4. The legal documents of our law courts shall be served through diplomatic channels on a party in a
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