Thank you, P Smith. I hereby appoint you to the honorary rank of Letters Blogatory resident Guernsey expert! I especially appreciate the pointer to the 1957 statute.

Section 2(1) of the Service of Process and Taking of Evidence (Guernsey) Law, 1957 provides:

“It shall be lawful for any person to serve on any other person within an Island any process or citation in any civil or commercial matter summoning or citing that other person to appear before a court or tribunal of any country outside that Island, whether within or without Her Majesty’s dominions.”

I think this means that any interested person can ask the Sergeant to effect service of foreign process without the foreign court making a formal request. Thus “give the documents to the Sergeant” is a method of service available under Article 19, albeit not one which differs in any meaningful way from Article 10(c).

On the other hand, if it means that anyone can do in relation to foreign process what only the Sergeant is permitted to do in relation to Guernsey process (unlikely, because it raises the question of why only the Sergeant should be permitted to serve Guernsey process if anyone may serve foreign process) then in this case service may have been proper.

For completeness I should mention that section 2(2)(b) of the 1957 Law confers a power to make rules of court “for regulating the service in an Island of any process or citation in any civil or commercial matter pending before a court or tribunal of a foreign country … for giving effect to any agreement made before, on or after the commencement of this Law between the United Kingdom and that foreign country in the matter of service of any such process or citation as aforesaid”, but if such rules have been made to give effect to the Hague Convention then I can’t find them.