Postal Rule in UK Law

Granted that the purpose of service is to bring the document to the attention of the person to be served, these are all methods of service other than personal service which are not bound to put the document literally into the hands of the person to be served on any particular day. It seems to me that parties serving documents by these means are in a better position if the deemed date for service is certain than if it is open to challenge on factual grounds.

Rule 13.3(1)(b) has a disjunctive alternative, so that the court may set aside or vary judgment entered in default if it appears to the court that there is some other good reason why the judgment should be set aside or varied or the defendant should be allowed to defend the claim. In my view, this is plainly capable of extending to circumstances where the defendant has not received the claim form and particulars of claim before judgment was entered against him.

Mr Gough came to the conclusion that on balance an application could be made and that it could be made by the returning officer. It will be apparent from the findings which I earlier made as to the applicable electoral law that it is my view that Mr Gough reached the wrong answers on each of the above questions. But Mr Moloney rightly says that it does not necessarily follow that Mr Gough was negligent.

If Mr Gough had realised the need for an election petition (as he should have done), he would then have had to consider what, if any, was the point of making the application under rule 47. If Mr Gough had thought the matter through, as he should have done, he would have recognised not only that a petition was necessary but also that, given a petition, there was nothing to be achieved by an application under rule 47.

The aim of rule 6.7 is to achieve procedural certainty in the interests of both the claimant and of the defendant. The rules employ a carefully and clearly defined concept of the "service" of a document, which focuses on the stated consequences of the sending of the document by the claimant, rather than on evidence of the time of its actual receipt by the defendant.

Nevertheless, it follows in our judgment that to use rule 6.8 as a means for turning the flank of those Conventions, when it is common ground that they do not permit service by a direct and speedy method such as post, is to subvert the Conventions which govern the service rule as between claimants in England and defendants in Germany.

This Rule, in my judgment, does nothing more than afford a convenient alternative to personal attendance. It is to make an application for a new lease by originating application by producing the relevant document to the officials. This it seems to me can plainly only be done in office hours, when the office is functioning as such.