Macau and Hong Kong signed Tuesday an arrangement for mutual service of judicial documents in civil and commercial cases.
The arrangement was inked by Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan Hoi Fan and Hong Kong Chief Secretary for Administration Matthew Cheung Kin-chung at Government Headquarters.
Cheung paid a one-day working visit to Macau, during which he also paid a courtesy call on Chief Executive
Chui Sai On.
According to a statement by the Hong Kong government’s Information Services Department (ISD), Cheung and Chui exchanged views on the latest developments and cooperation between Hong Kong and Macau in different areas including economic matters, trade, cross-border infrastructure development and youth matters.
The ISD statement quoted Cheung as saying that “following the commissioning of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge in the near future, coupled with the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area development would greatly enhance cooperation between Hong Kong and Macau and create enormous development opportunities for the two places.”
The statement also said that the arrangement for mutual service of judicial documents signed by the two special administrative regions (SARs) Tuesday was aimed at setting up an official channel between the two places to make outgoing and incoming requests for service of judicial documents.
The statement pointed out that the new arrangement will provide for an official channel to facilitate the litigants in civil and commercial cases of the two SARs to serve judicial documents, and clear procedures for service of judicial documents, such as direct transmission of requests between courts of the two SARs, specifying the types of judicial documents that can be entrusted for service, and the information and language required of requests.
According to the statement, “the arrangement also requires that the court of the requested party shall endeavour to complete the requests for service within two months and issue a certificate of service indicating whether the judicial documents have been served on the relevant parties.”
