LA SCISSIONE DEGLI EFFETTI DELLA NOTIFICAZIONE E L'INTERRUZIONE DELLA PRESCRIZIONE

In Italian procedural law the service of documents represents an essential instrument for the exercise of the civil action and of other procedural laws. Likewise, as a rule, the service has some relevant consequences on the addressee. According to this, a crucial issue is both the protection of the addressee’s awareness and of the plaintiff’s certainty his right is really exercised. In order to grant the latter expectation, a recent reform in the Italian civil procedural law has stated the production of effects in the advantage of the plaintiff, starting from the moment he gives the document to the bailiff, commissioning him to deliver it to the addressee. On the one hand, the new rule of splitting of service effects for the plaintiff and for the addressee has solved an incongruity, on the other new problematic issues have arisen. Especially, my thesis concerns the moment of the service procedure when the period of limitation can be assumed to be respected. This specific matter allows a deep study of the subject of the procedural service, furthermore it allows the analysis of the still questionable aspects about the validity of service and the role played by the certification of the service, on the one hand, and about the differences of the service with respect to other instruments of knowledge provided by law, on the other, especially the communication by the clerk in civil process. Therefore, my thesis tries to offer some ideas about the realization by a procedural act, and precisely by its service, of substantial effects, i.e. of consequences that directly involve the right in its substantial dimension. What is more, some general questions concern the application of the principle of splitting service effects in case of invalidity of the service. Finally, mention is given to the topic of the application of the aforesaid principle to the transmission of acts that don’t belong to the process.