The Study On The Duty Of Truth Of The Parties In Civil Procedure

Protecting the parties' substantive rights and safeguarding the country's(region's) legal order is the basic value of the civil procedure.If the parties are allowed to arbitrarily make false statements or false defenses in litigation,it is obviously contrary to the basic values mentioned above.The early theory of civil litigation was influenced by individualism and liberalism.It was held that civil litigation should strictly follow the adversary system,and it must be denied that the parties have the obligation to make true and complete statements.Therefore,in litigation,there are many cases where the parties make false statements,put forward unfounded defenses,and even lied to the extreme.This kind of behavior hinders the realization of the truth discovering,delays the civil procedure,wastes judiciary resources,and damages the legitimate rights and interests of the other party or the third party.Incorrect judges seriously undermine the credibility of the judiciary,affecting people's satisfaction with the judicial process.In view of this,scholars reflect on the shortcomings of the liberal litigation model.Then there emerges legislative opinions that the parties should bear true and fully stated obligation.The theory has gradually matured and gradually influenced the reform of civil litigation procedures in civil law countries and regions.The countries and regions of the common law system have also established the duty of truth of parties and litigation agents through such systems as statement of truth.Even though the duty of truth has been stipulated by the laws of many countries explicitly or by judgments,the dispute still exists.For example,the tense relationship between duty of truth and debate doctrine of the parties,the definition of "real" in duty of truth,the scope or boundaries of duty of truth,and the legal effects of violating duty of truth.The above issues are closely related to the development of civil lawsuit teleology,the development trend of debate doctrine,the public's expectation of the role of civil judicial system,and the dominance of legal culture.It is quite complex in theory and deserves attention and in-depth study.Practice is the sole criterion for testing the vitality of the system and the value of the rules.The civil litigation system in Taiwan stipulates the true and complete statement obligation of the parties.Hong Kong introduced the regulation of statement of truth.To make an empirical analysis of the judicial practice in these two regions,and to sum up relevant experiences,will be helpful to the construction of China's duty of truth system.For a long time,in the practice of civil procedure in China,there has been widespread abuse of litigation rights by parties.Cases of malicious lawsuits,false lawsuits,false statements in litigation,delays in litigation,and falsification of evidence have occurred from time to time,and litigation efficiency and substantive justice have been devastated.With the appeal of academics and substantive departments,the revised Civil Procedure Law in 2012 clearly stipulates the principle of good faith and regulates the issue of false litigation.The judicial interpretation of the Civil Procedure Law in 2015 provided a system of truthful statement guarantees.After the implementation of the new law and judicial interpretation,statements such as "The parties and their agents have the duty of truth" began to appear in the judgment.Is the concept used accurately?What is the status of false statements in our civil procedure?Is this kind of legislation designed to effectively create a litigation space that will prevent dishonesty and advocate honesty?What systems should be adopted to ensure the application of duty of truth in the civil proceedings in China?In this paper,a comprehensive review of the duty of truth theory is carried out,and the above questions are answered in depth.The introduction introduces the origin of the problem,the status quo of the research,and the research methods of this article.The conclusion remarks on the main points presented in this paper.In addition,the article is divided into six chapters:The first chapter examines the concept and historical evolution of duty of truth.First of all,the concept of duty of truth is explained,from the philosophical context to the legal context,the "sincerity" standard is introduced between "cognitive" and"factual",and the requirement of the subjective cognition of the parties to the duty of truth is emphasized.Define the object of regulation of the duty of truth,determine the scope of the subject and object of the obligation,and elaborate on the nature of the legal obligation of the general procedural norms of duty of truth.Secondly,examine the origin and development of duty of truth.Through the retrospective analysis of the process and historical evolution of the duty of truth,this paper reconstructs the manifestations of the ideals of litigation and prohibition of lies in different historical stages and countries or regions.On this basis,it summarizes the value orientation of duty of truth and the balance among each orientation.With the change of the concept of civil litigation and the revision and reconciliation of the debate doctrine,the requirements of the principle of good faith gradually penetrated from the substantive law to the procedural law.The two major legal systems countries or regions require parties to bear the obligation to promote litigation,or regulate the parties' behavior of obstructing litigation.Between the two poles of confrontation and cooperation,the duty of truth not only serves the basic functions of the helper entity in a fair manner,but also assumes the function of excluding reckless lawsuits or promoting the recognition of facts according to its manifestations in different countries or regions.The second chapter elaborates on the boundaries of duty of truth.The birth of duty of truth aimed at the reconciliation or revision of debate doctrine.The degree to which such reconciliation should be limited would not constitute an erosion of the rules of debate doctrine and the burden of proof,is a constant concern on the duty of truth doctrine.The absolute theories and limited theories have a continuous debate on the dual extension of the duty of truth,that is,the requirement of the true statement and the requirement of the full statement and the debate whether there is a certain degree of tension.In the focus of the relevant debate,we can find a way to resolve those contradictions.That is,in the adjustment of boundaries,privilege and exceptions are regulated;in the relationship between duty of truth and other rules,the system is tuned,such as the duty of truth and the admission system,the tuning of the acknowledgment system,the self-consistency of duty of truth and burden of proof.The third chapter introduces the legal consequences of violating duty of truth.Although laws in various countries or regions generally promote the true statement of the parties,most laws do not clearly provide direct legal consequences for the parties'false statements.The obvious adverse consequences or the sanctions imposed by a small number of plaintext mainly include:the judge's unfavorable evaluation of evidence,the imposition of fines,detentions and other compulsory measures,ordering the party to bear part of the litigation cost.In addition,violations of duty of truth may also create the possibility of assuming civil liability or criminal liability.This chapter discusses how to understand the establishment of the legal consequences of duty of truth and whether sanctions against violating duty of truth should play a guiding or sanctioning role,and discusses the criteria for applying substantive sanctions and the timing for reviewing violations of duty of truth.The fourth chapter carries out an empirical analysis of the true and complete obligation of the parties in Taiwan.The reform of the civil proceduure law in the Taiwan region has strengthened the responsibilities of judges in assisting litigants to organize litigation materials.At the same time,it is supplemented by the duty of truth of lawyers,the parties' assistance in clarifying obligation,true and complete obligation,and litigation promotion obligation.In the judicial practice in Taiwan with the characteristics of the Chinese law system,what kind of role does the party's duty of truth play,and how does the system's play its role?Why is the duty of truth of lawyers recognized and practiced in Taiwan?This chapter carries out empirical analysis based on typical cases,practical perspectives,questionnaire survey findings,and interview content.It also draws lessons from the relevant experience of duty of truth in Taiwan.Chapter V conducts an empirical analysis of the statement of truth in Hong Kong.The statement of truth is introduced in Hong Kong's civil justice reform.This kind of duty of truth of the parties is significantly different from the duty of truth of parties in civil law countries in terms of institutional extension,institutional design,and sanctions.What are the basic rules for statement of truth and how effective are the operations?How do the judges,lawyers,and other groups perceive the operation of this system?This chapter discusses the above issues,introduces the rules from the perspective of legislation,and conducts micro-observation from an empirical perspective.The issues of cultural dominance,semantic ambiguity,expectation on judges,and their impact on judicial practice are discussed separately.Chapter VI discusses the concrete construction of China's duty of truth.After a thorough discussion of the theoretical issues of duty of truth,summing up empirical experience,and combining the current situation of judicial practice in our country,this paper discuss the obstacles that duty of truth would face.At the same time,based on our country's legal soil and legal culture,this paper defines the content and function of duty of truth.Finally,based on the conclusion of empirical analysis,this paper discusses the ways of constructing the duty of truth in civil litigation,and puts forward the core functions of fulfilling the duty of truth from the three dimensions which are system scope,system guarantee,and sanctions system.