In what form must an application for a civil petition be made, and for which kind of petition may an oral statement or telephone call do?
General information · Not legal advice
Material to check
In the practice file we read the application as filed, whether a paper document or an electronic document, and the receiving agency's record of what arrived and when, since the provision turns on the form of the submission. Where the submission was spoken or telephoned, we look for any note of the contents taken down by the officer receiving it, though the provision itself requires no such note.
These are types of material to look for, not evidence already verified by PRO SE.
Where readings differ
One reading follows the main text first: an application for a civil petition must be made in writing, and a document includes an electronic document as meant by the e-Government Act, so a spoken or telephoned request is not an application unless the proviso applies.
Another reading limits the proviso to petitions of the 'other' kind, and notes that this provision itself does not say which petitions fall in that category or how a spoken or telephoned request is to be recorded or counted as received.
Your judgment
When a request arrived by telephone, how could the file show that it was a petition of the 'other' kind, so that the spoken form was enough?
PRO SE does not make this decision or keep a case record on this public site.When to reconsider
We look at this again if the provision is amended to widen or narrow the spoken and telephone route, if a court decision or the definitions in the Act settle which petitions are 'other' petitions, or if a record shows how such a request was registered.