Europos Sąjungos valstybių narių bendradarbiavimas renkant įrodymus civilinėse ir komercinėse bylose ; Cooperation of EU member states in the field of taking of evidence in civil and commercial matters

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Abstract

Since Lithuania's membership in the European Union on 1 May 2004, EU legal acts are directly applied in Lithuania. One of them is Council Regulation (EC) No 1206/2001 of 28 May 2001 on cooperation between the courts of the Member States in the taking of evidence in civil or commercial matters. Another international legal act regulating taking of evidence in the foreign countries in civil and commercial matters is The Hague Convention of 18 March 1970 on the Taking of Evidence Abroad in Civil or Commercial Matters adopted by the Lithuanian Parliament on 13 April 2004. In any case, it is important to pay attention to fact, that the regulation is the first EU legal act directly regulating process of taking of evidence in association among EU legal members, except of Denmark, to which the regulation is not adjusted. The article describes the reasons stipulated adoption of the regulation and its relation and advantages in regard to Hague Convention. the regulation sets two possibilities of taking of evidence in another member state, i.e. taking of evidence applying procedure of passive and active requisition. Both of these methods are equivalent therefore they are considering in the article. The important breakthrough was incorporation of taking of evidence applying procedure of passive requisition in to the regulation, despite of application is limited by voluntariness and based on permission from the state in which the evidence should be taken. The article in details considers all proceedings of taking of evidence defined in the regulation, provides ways to solve controversial issues and reviews the main foreign sources related to this subject.