Can the notice of court appearance be a short message notice?

Legal analysis: not necessarily. Court cases are divided into ordinary procedures and summary procedures. Court summons can generally be served in the following ways: direct service, lien service, mail service, entrusted service, announcement service, etc. However, in cases where summary procedure is applicable, the people's court may summon both parties by telegram, telephone, short message, fax, e-mail and other simple means. If the parties are notified in this simple way, they need to confirm.

In the actual service process, the court sometimes calls the parties to obtain legal documents such as court summons, and the parties can choose to receive them in person or ask the court to mail them.

Legal basis: Article 261 of the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) is applicable to the trial of a case by summary procedure. The people's court may summon both parties, notify witnesses and serve litigation documents other than the judgment documents by taking a message, telephone, text message, fax or email.

The people's court shall not make a judgment by default if the notice of hearing served in a simple way has not been confirmed by the parties or there is no other evidence to prove that the parties have received it.

When a case is tried by summary procedure, the judge shall be the sole judge and the clerk shall be responsible for recording it.