NOTES ON AUTHORIZATION FOR PARTICIPATION IN PROCEEDINGS AT THE COURT

Currently, involved parties usually authorize other individuals or organizations to participate in dispute settlement at Courts to protect their legitimate rights and interests. The authorization helps the involved parties to save the time and effort in contacting and working with the Court when the authorized people on behalf of the involved parties receive the procedural documents transmitted and notified by Courts or participate in meetings for checking the handover of, access to and disclosure of evidences and mediating as well as Court trials. However, the involved parties need to note on some issues that the authorization is valid and recognized by the Court. In this article, we hereby analyze and clarify these issues.

1. The form of the authorization

During the proceedings at the Court, the authorized parties are the involved parties in the lawsuit, who can be individuals or legal entities. Under Article 85.1 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, the authorized parties (authorized representatives) can also be individuals or legal entities.

Under Article 86.2 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code, the authorized representatives in proceedings shall perform the procedural rights and obligations of the involved parties according to the written authorization. Thus, the involved parties must authorize in the form of writing and can be an Authorization Contract or a Letter of Authorization (Power of Attorney). In reality, the parties regularly enter into an authorization relationship through a Power of Attorney due to the short procedure which only requires the signature and confirmation of the authorizing party.

Regarding the notarization, currently, Article 272.6 of the 2015 Civil Procedure Code only stipulates the notarization of Power of Attorney in the case involved parties authorize to appeal against the judgment or decision to suspend or terminate the lawsuit settlement of the first instance Court, without the notarization of Power of Attorney in other cases. In reality, the Court will consider the legal status of the authorizing parties to request them to submit the Power of Attorney with or without notarization, in particular as follows:

– In case (1): The authorizing party is an individual

The court will request the notarized Power of Attorney if the authorizing party is an individual. At that time, the Power of Attorney will be considered a valid document.

– In case (2): The authorizing party is a legal entity

The Court will not request the legal entity to notarize since the Power of Attorney has already contained the signature of its legal representative and its seal. Therefore, when entering into an authorization relationship, the parties should note to determine the legal status of the authorizing party to carry out the procedures for establishing the Power of Attorney accordingly.

2. The contents of the authorization

Normally, a Power of Attorney has the following main contents: (i) Information of the authorizing party and the authorized party, (ii) Grounds for authorization, (iii) Authorization purpose, (iv) Authorization scope, and (v) Authorization term.

In case the parties notarize the Power of Attorney at a notary office, the notary usually requests that the Power of Attorney is made under the form provided by the notary office with the agreed content under the will of the parties. Therefore, the parties should note the authorization scope and the authorization term to protect their rights and interests and avoid disputes arising from the authorization relationship in the future.

3. Submission of Power of Attorney to the Court

In addition to the notarization of Power of Attorney, the Court will request the involved parties to submit the original Power of Attorney, and if they only submit a copy or a certified copy, the Court will not accept it. Therefore, in the process of establishing the Power of Attorney, the involved parties need to prepare a sufficient number of original copies of the Power of Attorney so that each party in the authorization relationship has at least one original copy to store after submission at the Court’s request.

With the above legal analysis and share, we hope this article will help you understand and note the issues of the authorization for participation in proceedings at the Court.

Best regards.

TNTP & Associates International Law Firm