Zambia Process Service

Zambia Process service, also known as “service of process,” is the procedure employed to give appropriate notice of initial legal action to another party (such as a defendant), court, or administrative body in an effort to exercise jurisdiction over that person so as to enable that person to respond to the proceeding before the court, body, or other tribunals. Notice is furnished by delivering a set of court documents (called “process”) to the person to be served; a process server performs Zambia process service.

Zambia PROCESS SERVERs

Zambia process servers serve civil and commercial matters pursuant to the Hague Service Convention, a multilateral treaty adopted in Hague, Netherlands, on November 15, 1965, by member states of the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It came into existence to give litigants a reliable and efficient means of serving the documents on parties living, operating, or based in another country. The provisions of the convention apply to the service of process in civil and commercial matters but not criminal matters. Also, the Convention shall not apply if the address of the person to be served with the document is not known.

Method of Service and Translation requirements

The Central Authority of the State addressed shall itself serve the document or shall arrange to have it served by an appropriate agency, either – a) by a method prescribed by its internal law for the service of documents in domestic actions upon persons who are within its territory or b) by a particular method requested by the applicant unless such a method is incompatible with the law of the State addressed.

Subject to subparagraph (b), the document may be served by delivery to an addressee who accepts it voluntarily. Suppose the document is to be served under the Central Authority. In that case, the document must be written in, or translated into, the official language or one of the official languages of Zambia.

Procedure

The Hague Service Convention established a more simplified means for parties to effect service in other contracting states. Under the convention, each contracting state is required to designate a central authority to accept incoming requests for service. A judicial officer who is competent to serve process in the state of origin is permitted to send a request for service directly to the central authority of the state where service is to be made. Upon receiving the request, the central authority in the receiving state arranges for service in a manner permitted within the receiving state, typically through a local court. Once service is effected, the central authority sends a certificate of service to the judicial officer who made the request.

The main benefits of the Hague Service Convention over letters rogatory are that it is faster (requests generally take two to four months rather than six months to one year), and it uses standardized forms that authorities should recognize in other states. It is cheaper (in most cases).

Alternate Methods of Service

The Hague Convention provides various modes of process service of documents, such as by postal channel or by diplomatic/consular agents, judicial officers, officials, or other competent persons. These provisions are covered under Articles 8 to 10 and may or not be allowed by member countries as a valid mode of serving the documents in their territory. The method of serving the documents through the Central Agency (Article 5) is not optional but is binding on all the member countries. The Central Agency does the services usually takes a long time: 4 to 12 months. The convention gives relief to the litigants if they have not received a certificate of service or delivery from the Central Agency even after waiting for six months. In such cases, the Court may, if it considers that a reasonable time has elapsed, give its judgment. Also, in case of urgency, the court may issue a provisional order or protective measure even before the six-month waiting period.

Service by Mail

Service by mail is possible only in states that have not objected to that method under Article 10(a) of the convention and if the jurisdiction where the court case takes place allows it under its applicable law.