Oikeuslaitos - Service by agencies of judicial administration

The business hours of the agencies of judicial administration are 8am to 4:15pm. The contact information provided for them include postal addresses, street addresses, telephone numbers, telefax numbers and e-mail addresses. The manner in which service is provided depends on the purpose of the contact and on the type of agency involved.

The agencies of judicial administration are still most frequently contacted by visiting them in person or by sending documents through the post. Inquiries and e.g. orders for documents can be sent to all agencies also by phone, by telefax and by e-mail. Legal aid offices require a prior appointment.

The agencies of judicial administration provide service in the Finnish and Swedish languages.

Delivery of documents to an agency

Documents may be delivered to an agency in person, by an attorney or courier, or through the post. An attorney must hold a power of attorney. In many cases, it is recommended that documents be delivered in person, as e.g. a petition to a district court or an application to a legal aid office can be briefly examined at once, and any defects communicated to the author at the same time. In this manner, it is possible to avoid a written, or telephoned, exhortation to supplement the document. An application for the enforcement of a tax or some other charge enforceable without a judgment or court order cannot be filed by an attorney.

Delivery of documents through the mail takes place at the risk of the sender. If a document (e.g. a letter of appeal) is to be delivered to an agency within a set period, it should be kept in mind that also posted documents must arrive at the agency no later than on the last day of the period, before the end of business hours.

Electronic delivery of process documents to a court of law

In addition to the traditional means of delivery referred to above, an application for a summons, a response and other process documents may be delivered to a court of law or to a person designated as the addressee of the document also by telefax or e-mail. Such ”electronic” delivery is governed by the provisions of the Act on Electronic Service by the Public Authorities (13/2003).

As of 1 February 2003, the Act applies to all courts of law, that is, the general courts, the administrative courts and the special courts. It applies also to certain other judicial organs, such as the appeals boards subordinate to the Insurance Court.

Delivery by telefax or e-mail takes place at the risk of the sender. A document to be delivered within a set period must be sent so that it is accessible to the receiving agency in a reception device or information system before the end of that period.

The document is deemed to have arrived, if the authority is capable of technical processing of the document. A document whose sender is unknown or which cannot be opened is not deemed to have arrived.

Under the new legislation, an electronically delivered document need not be supplemented merely by a manuscript signature, if the document contains information on the sender and there is no reason to suspect that the contents of the message have been corrupted in transmission.

If an electronic system used by the authority malfunctions or is off line, or if the time of arrival of the document cannot be ascertained for some other corresponding reason, the electronic document is deemed to have arrived at the time when it was sent. In order for the time of sending to be accepted as the time of arrival, credible proof as to the time of sending must be provided.

Recommended attachment formats

All agencies of judicial administration have official e-mail addresses, which can be found on the contact information pages. A message sent to an official address will be auto-replied in acknowledgement of receipt.

Use of attachments is not recommended. The contents of the document should appear in the body of the message.

If the document for some reason must be sent as an attachment, the file format should not be specific to platform or software application. Acceptable standards include

The agencies may also handle documents saved as PDF (Adobe Acrobat version 7 or older) or RTF files. If some other format is used, it cannot be guaranteed that the attached document can be opened or read with the applications available to the agency.

Attachments which are in exe-, pif-, mp3-, scr-, vbs-, com-format will be removed.

Electronic applications

Certain applications may also be filed electronically with an information system used by an agency. Such applications include a petition for a summons in a civil case, filed with a district court, and an enforcement application, filed with a bailiff’s office. More detailed information on electronic applications appear on the page on district courts.

Access and availability

The documents of the authorities and the information in them are subject to public access, unless a statutory duty of secrecy applies to them. A typical example of a secret document is one containing health or disability data on another person or information on another person being a customer of the social welfare services. If a secret document is indispensable for the hearing of a case where the subject of the document himself or herself, the subject has the right to access that document.

A request for access is filed with the authority which is considering or has considered the matter. The courts, the enforcement authorities and the prosecutors make documents available on the basis of the name of a person. Legal aid offices do not provide the names of recipients of legal aid to third parties. The authorities provide directory assistance so that the requester can identify the case to which the document pertains.

Once a document has been locate, the authority ascertains whether access to it can be granted or whether it is to be kept secret. The decision is open to appeal.