Garda: "The defendant's absence is odd your honour as we poked them twice this week!"

TheBoss!

Seems that this is the kinda of thing that could soon become a regular utterance in our courts:

You’ve been tagged! Substituted service by Facebook

The Irish High Court recently approved as an acceptable form of ‘substituted service’ the service of a summons by Facebook. This appears to be the first time an Irish court has permitted service by social media.

‘Substituted service’ is an exception to the general requirement that personal service of pleadings be effected. The Court may make an order for ‘substituted service’ where a plaintiff can show that they were unable to effect personal service on a party to proceedings.

Though prior to this decision, the potential forms of substituted service were not exhaustive, registered post was by far the most common method, while the Court rules also envisaged service by notice or advertisement. The non-exhaustive nature of these rules has given the Court the flexibility to develop them in line with the ever growing phenomenon of social media.

Upon a recent application for substituted service, which was reported on 4 June 2012, Mr Justice Peart permitted the service of a court summons by way of social media. Specifically, service was permitted via private email on the social networking site Facebook.

In making the ruling, Mr Justice Peart was satisfied that the defendant was an active Facebook user and that use of the conventional serving methods would prove ineffective as the home address, telephone number and email address of the defendant, who was living outside Ireland, were all unknown.

Despite the existence of similar case law in other jurisdictions including the UK, Australia and New Zealand, this is the first case of this nature within Ireland and is an area which will undoubtedly be developed further in the future.

Seems crazy to me.

Understandable of course that we now prosecute for online crimes that had been ignored previously, like the abuse directed at Tom Daley and would also support online activities being used as evidence at a trial but issuing court summons in this way seems like a step too far as how can they know that the person will see defiantly see it.

That's the whole point of sending summonses via registered post in the first place I would have thought.

What's next?

"Well your honour, he accepted our Google Chat request at 11pm on the 15th and when I told him I was Garda Flanagan, he went to invisible mode on me".

al28283

The Defendent is Offline

DirtyBollox

If you send a message to someone through facebook you can see if they have looked at it or not.

and as mentioned in the above article they dont know the address of the person being summoned so a registered letter is pretty useless.

TheBoss!

DirtyBollox wrote: »

If you send a message to someone through facebook you can see if they have looked at it or not.

Not necessarily.

You could be opening it and get disconnected and for one reason or another, not log-in again until after you're due in court. Or you could just close your Facebook account forgetting there was a message you almost seen.

and as mentioned in the above article they dont know the address of the person being summoned so a registered letter is pretty useless.

Well, I'm sorry but then they should just have to work harder at finding them. It is a poor call to let Facebook messages become a criteria for an acceptable means of court summons delivery. Our justice system's standards is already low enough in many areas, social media summonsing will just add to it in my view.

CardBordWindow

Another good reason why I should shut my facebook account!

L.Jenkins

Imagine receiving an Event Invite for a Court Date. "You've been invited to District Court by 'the Gardai". Yes, No, Maybe :P

DirtyBollox

TheBoss! wrote: »

Not necessarily.

You could be opening it and get disconnected and for one reason or another, not log-in again until after you're due in court. Or you could just close your Facebook account forgetting there was a message you almost seen.



Well, I'm sorry but then they should just have to work harder at finding them. It is a poor call to let Facebook messages become a criteria for an acceptable means of court summons delivery. Our justice system's standards is already low enough in many areas, social media summonsing will just add to it in my view.

did you even read the article?

The person in question was deemed to be an active facebook user and therefore the judge made the decision that serving a summons through facebook was the way to go.

Also it hasnt mentioned anywhere that this would become the norm at all. it hasnt been written into law in anyway shape or form and as we are in the digital age with more and more stuff becoming available online and more things happening online than they should make moves to offer something like this when and as the case demands it.

aaronjumper

They're everywhere I tells ya!

mikom

The guards have sent you a summons via farmville........ do you wish to accept it?

fishy fishy

what if "the server is down"

TheBoss!

DirtyBollox wrote: »

did you even read the article?

The person in question was deemed to be an active facebook user and therefore the judge made the decision that serving a summons through facebook was the way to go.

The judge can only tell what happens in the past and not the future.

The law should meet higher standards and whether the user was a habitual Facebook user or not is quite irrelevant in my view - well, not at least when it comes to something as serious as court summons.

If the defendant is known to regularly frequent Dr Quirky's - would it be enough for the Gardai to just leave the summons beside the guy's favourite slot machine?

Court Summonses should be sent by registered post at all times in my opinion, as that method of delivery can be used in a court of law as proof of a person having received it. When technology reaches a point where all devices running browsers are equipped with fingerprint identification modules, that immediately sends off verification of receipt whenever any messages sent by An Garda Síochána are opened, I will consider changing my mind.

Also it hasnt mentioned anywhere that this would become the norm at all. it hasnt been written into law in anyway shape or form and as we are in the digital age with more and more stuff becoming available online and more things happening online than they should make moves to offer something like this when and as the case demands it.

Which is why in the OP, I used the word "could"

im invisible

How can you tell if a facebook mail has been read?