In a landmark ruling that is of little consequence to the Filipino legal community, the High Court of New Zealand approved the service of legal papers through Facebook on a defendant in a civil suit. The report from AFP.The defendant, Craig Axe, was believed to be in Britain, hence the difficulty in serving him legal papers through conventional methods. Counsel for plaintiffs asked the High Court to be allowed to serve the papers through Facebook, and this was allowed by the New Zealand High Court.
I'm too tired to find out, but I'm not sure whether Facebook accepts attachments, such as the PDF file of those papers. Will the plaintiff have to type out the complaint and send it as a message or post it on Craig Axe's wall? If I were Craig Axe though, I'd manifest receipt of papers through a status update: "Craig Axe got served!"
I doubt if such a ruling can be accommodated under the Rules of Procedure in the Philippines, which specifically relies on the registered mail system. If the defendant cannot be found in the Philippines, extraterritorial service (which involves publication in a newspaper) may be resorted to, as well as service by publication if the whereabouts of the defendant are unknown (see Sections 14 & 15, Rules of Civil Procedure).
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2 comments:
mode of service thru facebook makes notice exponentially fast. due process will never b the same agen.
Although the defendant can simply delete her/his Facebook account, as what appears to have happened with Craig Axe.
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