Chương 2. Triệu Tập Và Thông Báo Các Án Từ (Điều 1507-1512)

§1 In the decree by which a plaintiff’s petition is admitted, the judge or the presiding judge must call or summon the other parties to court to effect the joinder of the issue; he must prescribe whether, in order to agree the point at issue, they are to reply in writing or to appear before him. If, from their written replies, he perceives the need to convene the parties, he can determine this by a new decree.
§2 If a petition is deemed admitted in accordance with the provisions of can. 1506, the decree of summons to the trial must be issued within twenty days of the request of which that canon speaks.
§3 If the litigants in fact present themselves before the judge to pursue the case, there is no need for a summons; the notary, however, is to record in the acts that the parties were present at the trial.

§1 The decree of summons to the trial must be notified at once to the respondent, and at the same time to any others who are obliged to appear.
§2 The petition introducing the suit is to be attached to the summons, unless for grave reasons the judge considers that the petition is not to be communicated to the other party before he or she gives evidence.
§3 If a suit is brought against a person who does not have the free exercise of personal rights, or the free administration of the matters in dispute, the summons is to be notified to, as the case may be, the guardian, the curator, the special procurator, or the one who according to law is obliged to undertake legal proceedings in the name of such a person.

§1 With due regard to the norms laid down by particular law, the notification of summonses, decrees, judgements and other judicial acts is to be done by means of the public postal service, or by some other particularly secure means.
§2 The fact and the manner of notification must be shown in the acts.

A respondent who refuses to accept a document of summons, or who circumvents the delivery of a summons, is to be regarded as lawfully summoned.

Without prejudice to the provision of can. 1507
§3, if a summons has not been lawfully communicated, the acts of the process are null.

Once a summons has been lawfully communicated, or the parties have presented themselves before a judge to pursue the case:1° the matter ceases to be a neutral one;2° the case becomes that of the judge or of the tribunal, in other respects lawfully competent, before whom the action was brought;3° the jurisdiction of a delegated judge is established in such a way that it does not lapse on the expiry of the authority of the person who delegated;4° prescription is interrupted, unless otherwise provided;5° the suit begins to be a pending one, and therefore the principle immediately applies ‘while a suit is pending, no new element is to be introduced’.