Brussels, 26/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - It is incumbent upon national courts to provide service of documents for the transmission of judicial and extrajudicial documents from one member state to the next, a Court of Justice judgement of Thursday 25 June rules. A Spanish court had refused to transmit several documents to the competent authorities in the United Kingdom and Ireland, on the grounds that service of that document would not take place within the context of legal proceedings and therefore did not fall within the scope of the regulation on service of documents. The Court's judgement provides clarification regarding the scope of Council Regulation (EC) 1348/2000, which aims to improve and expedite the transmission of judicial and extrajudicial documents within the European Union. Notarial acts in particular - such as the termination of contracts in the case in hand - have a legal nature, even when they are not involved in legal proceedings strictly speaking. Court clerks are therefore under an obligation to ensure transmission of the document from one member state to the next. Regulation 1348/2000 aims to make procedures against individuals established in other member states more accessible, providing a mechanism that means the parties concerned do not have to go out of their country to serve a document to another party (or employ a notary or lawyer to do this in their stead). The documents simply have to be passed on to a court clerk, before a notary. The clerk must then transmit the documents in question to the relevant authorities of the member state concerned, who, in turn, ensures service of that document to the final destination. This is indispensable if crossborder legal proceedings are to be accessible to all, although it means an additional administrative burden on national courts.
In 2007, however, the registry of the Juzgado de Primera Instancia de Instrucción in San Javier (Spain) had refused to transmit 16 letters to addressees with an address for service in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Those letters were intended to terminate unilateral contracts for the sale of immoveable property by the real estate company, Roda Golf & Beach Resort, and the addressees. According to the court clerk, the letters were issued outside any legal proceedings and the Council regulation therefore did not apply, thus explaining the court clerk's refusal to transmit the document to the British and Irish authorities.
Roda Gold went on to appeal against the Juzgado de Primera Instancia de Instrucción No 5 of San Javier, which in turn referred the matter to the Court of Justice of the European Communities. In its ruling on Thursday, the latter replies that the letters in question are indeed of a legal nature, despite the fact that no legal proceedings were in progress. The documents should therefore be considered as “extrajudicial documents” falling within the scope of the regulation on service of documents, and as such should be transmitted to the addressees by national courts. One Spanish lawyer explained that, to date, Spanish courts had considered documents without any intrinsic legal character but part of a legal proceeding as “extrajudicial acts”. “For example, medical reports or other specialised information”, she said. (C.D./transl.jl)