foreign country in accordance with the procedures. and requirements as set out hereunder:
(a) the legal documents to be served shall be examined by the higher people's courts of the pro- vinces, autonomous regions or municipalities con- cerned before being dispatched by the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
(b) the correct name, sex, age, nationality and detailed address in the language of the receipient's country shall be clearly given, and an outline of the case concerned shall be given in the form of a letter addressed to the Consular Department of the Minis-
try
of Foreign Affairs to enable document dispatch;
(c) letters of authorization for service shall be attached to the legal documents to be served; where the name of the law court in the authorized country is not known, the law court having the jurisdiction over the place of residence of the person on whom the legal document is to be served, may be authorized to serve the legal documents in question. Translation of the letters of authorization and of the legal documents to be served, in the lanuguage of the authorized country or in the language of a third country as agreed by the authorized country, shall also be attached. Where the authorized country requests notarization, attestation or other forms of certification on the letters of author- ization and on the legal documents to be served, the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Af- fairs shall issue its notice for each and every case.
5. Should our law courts wish to serve legal documents on a party of Chinese nationals within the territory of a foreign country, and should such direct service by our embassy or consulate be permitted by the country concerned, our embassy or consulate to that country may be authorized to do so. Under such circumstances, translation of the legal documents to be served in the foreign language in question may not
be requried.
6. Fees charged for any authorized mututal ser- vice of legal documents, through diplomatic chan- nels, by the law courts of our state and the law courts of foreign countries shall in general be set in accord- ance with the principle of equal value exchange. Pay- ment by foreign law courts to our law courts for any authorized services of legal documents shall be made to the Consular Deparment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its onward transmission to the relevant higher people's courts; payment by our law courts to foreign law courts for any authorized services of legal documents shall be forwarded by the relevant higher people's courts to the Consular Department of the Minstry Depratment of Foreign Affairs for its on- ward transmission to the foreign law courts. Where a special form of service is requested by the authorizing party, fees incurred as a result shall be borne by the authorizing party.
7. Apart from observation of the foregoing principles, the "Notice Concerning the Question on the Use of Certificate of Service for Authroized Mutual Service of Legal Documents between China and Japan" issued by the Supreme People's Court on the 12th of October 1982 shall be observed for any authorized mutual service of legal documents be- tween the law courts of China and Japan.
8. Mutual authorization, through diplomatic channels, for the investigation or securing of evidence between the law courts of our state and the law courts of foreign courntries shall be handled with refernece to the above provisions.
This notice becomes effective on promulgation. Any question that arises in the course of implementa- tion shall be reported to the units concerned.
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