Chapter VII Time Periods and Service

Section 1 Time Periods

Article 75 Time periods shall include those prescribed by the law and those designated by a people's court.

Time periods shall be calculated by the hour, the day, the month and the year. The hour and day from which a time period begins shall not be counted as within the time period.

If the expiration date of a time period falls on a holiday, then the day immediately following the holiday shall be regarded as the expiration date.

A time period shall not include traveling time. A litigation document that is mailed before the deadline shall not be regarded as overdue.

Article 76 In case of failure on the part of a party to an action to meet a deadline due to force majeure or for other justified reasons, the party concerned may apply for an extension of the time limit within 10 days after the obstacle is removed. The extension applied for shall be subject to approval by a people's court.

Section 2 Service

Article 77 A receipt shall be required for every litigation document that is served and it shall bear the date of receipt noted by the signature or seal of the person on whom the document was served.

The date noted on the receipt by the person on whom the document was served shall be regarded as the date of service of the document.

Article 78 Litigation documents shall be sent or delivered directly to the person on whom they are to be served. If that person is a citizen, the documents shall, in case of his absence, be receipted by an adult member of his family living with him. If the person on whom they are to be served is a legal person or any other organization, the documents shall be receipted by the legal representatives of the legal person or the principal heads of the other organization or anyone of the legal person or the other organization responsible for receiving such documents; if the person on whom they are to be served has an agent ad litem, the documents may be receipted by the agent ad litem; if the person on whom they are to be served has designated a person to receive litigation documents on his behalf and has informed the people's court of it, the documents shall be receipted by the person designated.

The date put down in the receipt and signed by the adult family member living with the person on whom the litigation documents are to be served, or by the person responsible for receiving documents of a legal person or any other organization, or by the agent ad litem , or the person designated to receive documents shall be deemed the date of service of the documents.

Article 79 If the person on whom the litigation documents are to be served or the adult family member living with him refuses to receive the documents, the person serving the documents shall ask representatives from the relevant grass-roots organization or the unit to which the person on whom the documents are to be served belongs to appear on the scene, explain the situation to them, and record on the receipt the reasons of the refusal and the date of it. After the person serving the documents and the witnesses have affixed their signatures or seals to the receipt, the documents shall be left at the place where the person on whom they are to be served lives and the service shall be deemed completed.

Article 80 If direct service proves to be difficult, service of litigation documents may be entrusted to another people's court, or done by mail. If the documents are served by mail, the date of receiving such documents stated on the receipt for postal delivery shall be deemed the date of service of the documents.

Article 81 If the person on whom the litigation documents are to be served is a serviceman, the documents shall be forwarded to him through the political organ of the unit at or above the regimental level in the force to which he belongs.

Article 82 If the person on whom the litigation documents are to be served is in imprisonment, the documents shall be forwarded to him through the prison authorities or the unit of reform through labour where the person is serving his term.

If the person on whom the litigation documents are to be served is undergoing rehabilitation through labour, the documents shall be forwarded to him through the unit of his rehabilitation through labour.

Article 83 The organization or unit that receives the litigation documents to be forwarded must immediately deliver them to and have them receipted by the person on whom they are to be served. The date stated on the receipt shall be deemed the date of service of the documents.

Article 84 If the whereabouts of the person on whom the litigation documents are to be served is unknown, or if the documents cannot be served by the other methods specified in this Section, the documents shall be served by public announcement. Sixty days after the date of making a public announcement, the documents shall be deemed to have been served.

The reasons for service by public announcement and the process gone through shall be recorded in the case files.