Fiches Belges

Procedural documents can be directly sent to the addressee by post or, when expressly required, by any other manner if compatible with the portuguese law. However when serving must be obtained via personal contact, due to procedural rules, an MLA request must be drafted, justified and transmitted directl to the executing authority.

Article 5 of the Convention on MLA between the MS of the EU.

Depending on the phase of the case the competent authority will be the Prosecutor (for the investigative phase, including serving of the indictment) or the Judge for the following phases, including the final judgement.

General rule appllies. Requests to Portugal must be sent in Portuguese or French (declaration to article 16 of the 1959 Convention)

No deadlines indicated but cause for urgency will be respected.

For cooperation with authorities out side of the EU 1959 Convention articles 14 and 15 apply; for cooperation with State Parties to multilateral or bilateral instruments, rules established by these ones will apply.