Property Dispute And Litigation Practice

Based on the center of civil litigation file, researching the economic social history from the angle of law history is a kind of new vision and new ideas of economic social history research. The combining of the law history and economic social history gives legal studies new vitality. Through the prospective of the law to watch the social economy and the union of Economic social history and legal history can enhance the economic social history's narrative function, explain function, humane care and pursuit of whole history. The previous research focuses on the civil litigation practice of the Song dynasty, the Ming, Qing dynasties and the republic of China period and has made many achievements. But there have no careful research based on region in the property dispute and litigation practice in the1950s to the1960s. Even so, this study still provides important enlightenment and reference in the method and idea of the research.Property dispute is essentially property rights' disputes, and property right is confirmed and protected by the formal property system or informal property system; the lawsuit settlement of property dispute is constrained by the state lawsuit system on the trial process and by the property rights system on the settlement basis.Therefore, Property disputes and litigation practice are closely related to the property rights system and the relevant judicial system.According to the interpretation of Yangquan city court's civil lawsuit archives (from1950to1965), and the combination with other material, this article deeply discusses the property dispute and litigation practice. Part of the property disputes are settled by the litigation. Compared with those settled by other methods, they are apparently different in the formation reasons, impact on the social economic order and the settlement method and process. In the specific historical era of economic and social change, in the judicial field without relative perfect civil law system, how the litigants express their property appeal, and how the judicial power confirm and protect the property rights, how all kinds of strength and factor step in and function in the process of property litigation, and so on. All these express the property rights relationship between the people, and the relations between the state power of the people and the right to appeal, the relationship between the economic society and law, the relationship between the policy and the law of a formal system and a civil habits as the main form of informal system in property rights protection effectively and deeply.After new China was founded, the Chinese society entered into a new development and reform period, the constantly adjustment and change of the economic system, the adjustment of the grassroots community power structure, the frequent alternation of the political movement, the change of the legal system and its quite sin-complete state brought by the abolition of the old authority, all these influenced the civil disputes that include property dispute and the lawsuit practice. Similarly, property disputes and litigation practice reflected and participated in the political and economic life's changes and the development of rights idea. Lawsuit documents showed that in the50s and60s judicial practice and the legal system was not perfect or even lacked, based on the existing laws, policies and customs, combined with the practical situation of the specific case, the court realized the function of the property rights'protection and the maintenance of social economic system. The experiences brought important reference value to the social and economic system consummation, the legal development and the judicial practice in new period.Marriage not only created the status of husband and wife, but also created property relation. Property relationship was becoming an important part of the validity of marriage. To ensure the economic basis of marriage and realize the social and economic function of marriage and family, it was necessary to institutionalize the marital property relations, and this creates a marital property system. The divorce belonging was one of the contents of the marital property system. Lawsuit practices showed that the divorce parties in the property rights appeal differently. Generally speaking, the man often showed strong demand for property, even required the woman to return goods as the condition of divorce; while the woman rarely showed so persistent attitude, they often hope the end of marriage relationship as soon as possible. The judge often paid attention to protecting women's rights to property, sometimes also considered the man's actual situation. The property in the divorce dispute was different in the amount and the type with different economic development and personal family economic conditions. Part of the case reflected the difficulties of the women in the family economic life in the early days.Breaking up and inheritance were common phenomenon and important social economic system in the social economic life. In most cases, people had assigned, possessed and used the deceased's property according to folk partition habit. At the same time, they divided the legacy of the decreased according to the rights and obligations principle in advance. Only those who were dissatisfied through the reconciliation and mediation still appealed to court. Troublesome cases such as breaking up and inheritance centrally reflected the conflict and the compromise, and reforming and absorb and the complex relationship between the new but still not perfected inherited system and the old customs system. In the brothers breaking up and inheritance disputes, the judge confirmed the division equally between the sons based on the families population, economic status and the contribution to family, and listened to the opinions of the parties based on the appropriate treatment according to the law of the confirmation inherit private property principle. In inheritance dispute cases women as a plaintiff, the judge showed an uncompromising position, the protection of the women's property inheritance equally was treated as important way in the basic requirements of the democratic new system and the transform of the society. Attitude toward the adoption problem is more cautious. For those based on customs just for the dead "top the basin" and "take pennant" and establish the adoption relationship, the judge didn't acknowledge the inheritance right of the stepson under the law. As the scarce resources, the house and the homestead are necessary material in daily life, house property right and the homestead right were arrangement of system between people's trust relationship and action selection. The importance of houses in the life of the people and property rights in the economic system were combined, which made the house property right critical in the personal, family, social and economic life. The house property dispute and litigation were critical in the definition of property right, maintaining of the economic trade security and social order. House disputes could attribute largely to:housing stress; the change of property right and the unclear ownership; lack of legal norms; seizing of another persons property intentionally. The main types of housing disputes included:dispute of the ownership of the house, dispute of the building transaction, housing mortgage disputes, etc. State policies, laws and folk customs in the house combined and influenced each other in the processing of settlement of disputes. Homestead disputes after1962were no longer the dispute of ownership, but the homestead servitude and the neighbouring relationship problems.Most of the folk borrowing, debt caused by buying goods for others happened in persons who were relatives, friends, neighbours, teacher and pupil relationship. Decided by the level of economic life at that time, the amount owed was generally small and interest-free loans. Property damage compensation disputes often occurred because of trivial disputes and most of them were due to fault not intentionally. Individual cases showed that irresponsible and abuse of power of some units or government agencies damage the property of the citizens. Although there was no a detailed legal norms to regulate borrowing behaviour and tort, but such "living law" as "the debt should be paid" and "damage anything,you should compensate" constituted the basic rules in the trial debt disputes and property damage compensation disputes. When the judge determined the existence of the loans, and finding out the relations and the occurrence of the arrears, loans, the amount of the debt, the method of reimbursement, infringing, responsibility, the value of the property damage, compensation way, they had accumulated some experience.Civil disputes and litigation practice process litigation record showed that:in addition to the divorce cases, the cases court hearing include: breaking up, inheritance, houses, homestead, debts, compensation, buying and selling, contract, processing, raising and other kinds of cases, and they reflected the social and economic life in many aspects. Based on this, this particular period of civil legal system could not solely be attributed to divorce legal system accurately. Civil judgment as a settlement have played an indispensable role in solving important property disputes in the case, and should not overstate the meaning of court mediation; the solid and strong private property rights idea of the people in the lawsuit process were decided by the real economic life, the social changes that exceeded some specific historical stage and common private rights idea often couldn't last and thorough popular feeling; the formal system such as policy and law and informal system such as civil habits including custom price being paid, mortgage trading functioned individually in property rights protection.Public rights idea, and the corresponding struggle to maintain their rights including to resort to the use of state power in the legal proceedings, are the intrinsic motive power in the social economic change and legal development. At the same time, social economic change and legal development also affect people's rights ideas and action selection. Coordination of the relationship between the state and folk law, provision considerate and the strong system protection for the rights, are the basic needs of people, and also are the internal demand of China's social and economic change and the basic proposition in the modernization of law.