Delivering documents to courts

The sending of documents by post takes place under the responsibility of the sender. If the document must be delivered to the court within a specified time limit (such as an appeal letter), it must be borne in mind that the document must be delivered to the court no later than the last day of the deadline before the end of the term of office.

Submitting documents in the e-services

Documents may be sent to administrative and special courts in the e-services of administrative and special courts (not with the Åland Administrative Court). The e-service is a secure way of providing confidential and sensitive documents.

In undis­puted debts and other sum­moned dis­putes, an elec­tronic ser­vice of the dis­trict court is in place, the use of which is oblig­a­tory for in­di­vid­u­als other than those deal­ing with their own af­fairs.

The ser­vice can­not be used in other mat­ters.

Delivering documents to the court by e-mail

In most cases, the procedural document may be delivered to the court or to a person designated as the addressee of the document by e-mail. The courts use agency e-mails whose addresses can be found in their contact information . From the Agency e-mail, the sender receives an automatic receipt of receipt of the item.

The sending of an e-mail means that the sender is responsible for the delivery of the e-mail. The document to be submitted within the time limit shall be sent to the judicial authority in such a way that the document is available to the authority in the reception device or information system before the end of the time limit. More detailed provisions on sending as so-called electronic communications are laid down in the Act on Electronic Services and Communication in the Public Sector (in Finnish).

A document the sender of which cannot be identified and the contents of which cannot be opened by the authority shall not be deemed to have been received.

A document received electronically need not be supplemented only in order to obtain a signature if the document contains information on the sender and there is no other reason to doubt the identity of the sender or that the con-tent of the message has changed during the electronic transmission.

If the electronic system used by the authority is inoperative or unavailable, or a report on the date of arrival of the document cannot be obtained for another similar reason, the time of arrival shall be determined as the date of transmission of the document. To determine the date of dispatch as the time of arrival, a reliable explanation of the date of dispatch must be presented.

The National Courts Administration has published guidelines to the general courts in order to harmonise attachment of files and designation practices for documents. Separate instructions have been prepared for the parties to ensure that the documents are already in compliance with these instructions upon arrival at the court. By harmonising practices, duplication of work between customers, attorneys and courts can be reduced.

(in Finnish)

Instructions for the attachment of files and designation of documents to be sent to administrative courts can be found on page E-services of administrative and special courts

Secure e-mail

The recommended method of submitting classified and sensitive documents to the courts is the Ministry of Justice's secure e-mail . Using the service is free, easy and safe.

When e-mail is sent to the Agency's office post, the appropriate identification information (name, related, etc.) must be entered in the title and content of the message in order for the staff of the agency to be able to transmit the mes-sage to the person dealing with the matter, to know what the e-mail relates to and from whom it is from.

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