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Court date stamp and Seal

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Dear Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service,

Under the Freedom of Information Act can you please provide if all court documents/orders issued from a court must have a court date stamp that includes the name of the court on the stamp and the date within it, in addition to the court seal that must also contain the name of the court that issued and sealed the instrument.

Please list all courts required to have a date stamp and when they must be used such as when accepting court documents and if they are also required to be applied when issuing court orders that must also be sealed by the court staff with the seal of the court.

Also if any court uses a single court seal that also contains the date.

If courts, both civil or criminal are not required to have a date stamp upon the filing of court documents, please list those courts as well and provide the reason why a court date stamp and a court seal of the court is not a requirement and provide where this information can be found.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Smith

BERT GEISHERD left an annotation ()

A look at the Civil Procedure Rules might help, if you are concerned with shortcomings in the County Court and beyond:

I JUDGMENTS AND ORDERS

Scope of this section

40.1 This Section sets out rules about judgments and orders which apply except where any other of these Rules or a practice direction makes a different provision in relation to the judgment or order in question.

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Standard requirements

40.2

(1) Every judgment or order must state the name and judicial title of the person who made it, unless it is –

(a) default judgment entered under rule 12.4(1) (entry of default judgment where judgment is entered by a court officer) or a default costs certificate obtained under rule 47.11;

(b) judgment entered under rule 14.4, 14.5, 14.6, 14.7 and 14.9 (entry of judgment on admission where judgment is entered by a court officer);

(c) a consent order under rule 40.6(2) (consent orders made by court officers);

(d) an order made by a court officer under rule 70.5 (orders to enforce awards as if payable under a court order); or

(e) an order made by a court officer under rule 71.2 (orders to obtain information from judgment debtors).

(2) Every judgment or order must –

(a) bear the date on which it is given or made; and

(b) be sealed(GL) by the court.

Dear Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service,

This request is due to be answered next week and by 16.9.2019. Please acknowledge that you have received it.

Yours faithfully,

Mr. Smith

Jones1, Sian, HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Dear Mr Smith
  
Thank you for your request dated 17 August 2019 in which you asked for the following information from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):   
 
Dear Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service, Under the Freedom of
Information Act can you please provide if all court documents/orders
issued from a court must have a court date stamp that includes the name of
the court on the stamp and the date within it, in addition to the court
seal that must also contain the name of the court that issued... and
sealed the instrument. Please list all courts required to have a date
stamp and when they must be used such as when accepting court documents
and if they are also required to be applied when issuing court orders that
must also be sealed by the court staff with the seal of the court. Also if
any court uses a single court seal that also contains the date. If courts,
both civil or criminal are not required to have a date stamp upon the
filing of court documents, please list those courts as well and provide
the reason why a court date stamp and a court seal of the court is not a
requirement and provide where this information can be found.

 
I will send you a response to your request by 16 September 2019.  
  

Regards,

Siân Jones LL.B

Head of Legal and Professional Services | Legal Operations Team

Secretary, Justices’ Clerks’ Society

Courts and Tribunals Development Directorate | HMCTS | Law Courts, Bridge
Street | Peterborough, PE1 1AD

💻 [1][email address]

Web:  [2]www.gov.uk/hmcts

 

[3]Here is how HMCTS uses personal data about you.

[4]Dyma sut mae GLlTEM yn defnyddio data personol amdanoch chi.

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Jones1, Sian, HM Courts and Tribunals Service

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Smith,

 

Please see attached reply to your query.

 

Regards,

Siân Jones LL.B

Head of Legal and Professional Services | Legal Operations Team

Secretary, Justices’ Clerks’ Society

Courts and Tribunals Development Directorate | HMCTS | Law Courts, Bridge
Street | Peterborough, PE1 1AD

💻 [1][email address]

Web:  [2]www.gov.uk/hmcts

 

[3]Here is how HMCTS uses personal data about you.

[4]Dyma sut mae GLlTEM yn defnyddio data personol amdanoch chi.

 

 

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Dear Sian E Jones LL.B.

Thank you for your partial response, I am asking questions for all the information in all formants including recorded and policies for both recording documents that have been sent to HMCTS court buildings and the issuing of court orders from the courts.

You appear to be saying that when a court order Is issued from the court that only a court seal needs to be applied and that this court seal does not contain a date for any of the courts is this correct?

How is a court seal recognised to come from a court when a court order/warrant/writ is issued from the court , surely it must contain certain details, do some court seals also contain a date, please list which do and those courts that don't and also the courts that do not use a court seal at all?

HMCTS staff must have a policy for recording applications/documents that have been received by them and they must be dated stamped with a court date stamp, is the time also recorded onto the documents by hand or otherwise recorded.

How can a date stamp be recognised to belong to the court if the name of the court or building is not contained within the date stamp, or there would be no evidence to prove that any had been received by staff. If certain courts are not required to use a post date stamp please list them and those that do.

Or are you saying that no courts have a legal requirement to date stamp any documents they receive or seal any court orders issued from the court?

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Smith

legal.operations, HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Dear Mr Smith,

I think I can most simply answer your final question and that should cover the rest. However, if you really want every written operating procedure relating to date-stamping documents in every court, that is a new request, and so you should submit a new request under FOIA. There is a risk if you do that, that it will exceed the costs limit however. So if you are really asking about a single court, you are more likely to receive a reply if you specify that rather than a scattergun request asking about everything.

There is no legal requirement for courts to date stamp documents received. As a matter of good practice they all do it, so there is evidence of the date of receipt, but it is not a legal requirement.

There is a legal requirement for the County Court, Family Court, and High Court to seal orders. The seal does not include a date. Court orders will show the date, but not within the seal. "Seal" is defined in the Civil Procedure Rules thus: " A seal is a mark which the court puts on a document to indicate that the document has been issued by the court".

There is no legal requirement for magistrates' courts or the Crown Court to seal orders.

In my reply I referred you to a previous What Do They Know? response which gives a lot of detail about the use of seals in those courts which use them. If you want to know what a seal looks like, put "general form of judgement or order county court" in a search engine and set it for images; you will receive a large number of images of county court orders.

There is obviously something behind your request, and you might get to the answer quicker if you asked the question directly. For example, if you have received a court order and you are not sure if it's genuine, you can ring up the court which appears to have issued it, and ask.

Regards,
Siân Jones LL.B
Head of Legal and Professional Services | Legal Operations Team
Secretary, Justices’ Clerks’ Society
Courts and Tribunals Development Directorate | HMCTS | Law Courts, Bridge Street | Peterborough, PE1 1AD
💻 [email address]
Web: www.gov.uk/hmcts

Here is how HMCTS uses personal data about you.
Dyma sut mae GLlTEM yn defnyddio data personol amdanoch chi.

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Dear Sian Jones LL.B legal.operations,

Thank you once again for your explanation, I am just curious as to why different courts have different procedures and do not think this information should exceed the cost limits because I would hope that HMCTS have all their policies in one place and that they have been computerised.

I am surprised that there is no legal requirement to date stamp documents that are received and just a matter of good practice by staff, especially if the rules or regulations require the date and time of filing for on example, on a petition.

I am also surprised that there is no legal requirement for the magistrates' court or the Crown Court to seal their orders and that only certain courts have to. So in effect they do not have to date stamp or court seal anything and there would be no proof of anything going in or out of those courts, which does seem very strange and a lot of trust involved from the public's point of view and one would hope a careful record is kept somewhere.

I shall take a look at the links you have provided.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Smith

legal.operations, HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Dear Mr Smith,

Different courts have different procedures for historical reasons. The High Court dates from the middle ages when instruments were generally witnessed with a seal.

The County Court was developed in the 19th century with a procedure based on the High Court's.

The County Court had a family jurisdiction which has recently been joined with the magistrates' and High Court family jurisdictions to create the Family Court. With 2/3 of its ancestors using seals, naturally it does too.

Magistrates' courts traditionally evidenced their orders with a signature (although that is on the way out now) probably for convenience as they sat all over the place, including in pubs and churches, and since everyone knew the local magistrates, that worked. The Crown Court was introduced in 1971, from a merger of the quarter sessions and the High Court's criminal jurisdiction. Quarter sessions were related to magistrates' courts and so didn't use seals, and the Crown Court adopted the same method of evidencing orders, rather than the old-fashioned seal.

The thing is, until the development of the typewriter, and later computers, everything had to be hand-written, so there needed to be something which said that a document was genuine. There were few fixed court offices and the only way to contact them to check was to write or go in person.

But in the 21st century, all orders are recorded in our computer systems, which are very secure, so in reality if the question is asked, is this a genuine court document, it can be easily checked. Someone in doubt can just ring or email the court , and they will check their system, so having proof on the face of the document is less necessary. And there is no magic in a modern seal; it's just a rubber stamp.

I don't think your concerns about there being no record of dates is justified. Because all orders are now done by a computer, they are all dated and the date can't be falsified as it could if it were just a question of a rubber stamp. So dates have never been as secure as they are now.

With regard to applications, some are received in the post and have to be date stamped. But many are emailed so have a date attached. And many are received direct to a court computer, for example police traffic prosecutions are input direct to the magistrates' courts computer, and applications for divorce are made online. So the date is automatically recorded by the system and can't be falsified.

The reason why the procedure could exceed the costs limit is that with a FOIA request we have to search until we are sure we've found everything there is on the point. So, for example, an operating procedure may have been adopted, but then everyone emailed with a further message received about it, then an update put on the intranet, a local amendment made because of local circumstances, and that search would have to be carried out by staff in every jurisdiction and every court. And we don't know until we start whether there is anything to find, but if there isn't, it doesn't make the search shorter, quite the opposite, as it takes longer to establish that something doesn't exist, than it does to find it.

Regards,
Siân Jones LL.B
Head of Legal and Professional Services | Legal Operations Team
Secretary, Justices’ Clerks’ Society
Courts and Tribunals Development Directorate | HMCTS | Law Courts, Bridge Street | Peterborough, PE1 1AD
💻 [email address]
Web: www.gov.uk/hmcts

Here is how HMCTS uses personal data about you.
Dyma sut mae GLlTEM yn defnyddio data personol amdanoch chi.

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Dear Sian E Jones LL.B. legal.operations,

Thank you once again and for pointing out the histriocal reasons all of which is very helpful. For also
pointing out that applications received in the post have to be dated stamped within all courts , what does the date stamp contain apart from the date to identify which court it has been received by and are all applications, documents and petitions required to have the time they were received marked upon them or just insolvency petitions, applications, covering letters and applications.

How is insolvency work date and timed stamped ( as opposed to just date stamped ) as received by the bankruptcy court in both the county court and High Court. The Insolvency courts seal does this also have a date within it.

The Crown Court does it have its own date stamp.

Yours sincerely,

Mr. Smith

legal.operations, HM Courts and Tribunals Service

Dear Mr Smith,

There is no regulation type of date stamp, it will be whatever the person responsible for kitting out the office ordered when the need arose. But it wouldn't matter if a different one were used, for example sometimes documents are handed over in court and the clerk might just hand-write the date on them. So usually they're just a date and the word "received". In days past some offices had bespoke ones made referring to the court in question, and some of those are probably still in use.

Crown Courts will have a date stamp like that. However most documents received by the Crown Court are received electronically and logged straight into the Digital Case System which date and time stamps every document and every interaction with a document.

About the insolvency process, I don't know anything from personal knowledge. However since most applications in bankruptcy are made online, documents uploaded will have a digital time stamp set by the system in the normal course of things.

If you want detailed information about how the County Court handles bankruptcy though, you should submit a specific enquiry about that. That is going to be considerably simpler to reply than an enquiry ranging across the entire justice process, which no single human being would be able to answer without research.

Regards,
Siân Jones LL.B
Head of Legal and Professional Services | Legal Operations Team Secretary, Justices’ Clerks’ Society Courts and Tribunals Development Directorate | HMCTS | Law Courts, Bridge Street | Peterborough, PE1 1AD
💻 [email address]
Web: www.gov.uk/hmcts

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We don't know whether the most recent response to this request contains information or not – if you are Mr. Smith please sign in and let everyone know.