PD15.2 Petition - Personal Service

PRACTICE DIRECTION - 15.2

PETITION—PERSONAL SERVICE

　

1.    Under r.14(7) of the Matrimonial Causes Rules (Cap.179) where a petition is served personally on the respondent spouse and no acknowledgment of service is returned to the court office, the affidavit of service must show the server's means of knowledge of the identity of the person served.

       Identification may be:

(a)    by means of a photograph exhibited to the affidavit, and proved at the hearing to be that of the respondent; or

(b)    by the personal knowledge of the process server, the petitioner or some other person present that the person served is the spouse of the petitioner; or

(c)    by the admission of the person served that he is the spouse of the petitioner.

2.    In the latter two cases the full circumstances and means of knowledge, and such corroborative evidence as is available (e.g. the production by the person served of some document establishing his identity or the volunteering by him of details only likely to be known to the respondent) must be set out in the affidavit.

3.    A case in which there is no identification by a photograph or signature, or by the presence of some person to be called at the hearing, will be referred to a registrar for decision as to the sufficiency of proof of identity.