The Power Of Courts In Investigating And Collecting Evidence In Civil Procedure

Court systems of investigation and evidence collection in civil actions have gone through a number of legislative reforms. Investigation and evidence collection system of comprehensive functions and powers was established in 1982; investigation and evidence collection system of limited functions and powers in 1991; and the powers of investigating and collecting evidence were refined and limited by judicial interpretations on some regulations about civil lawsuit proof in 2001. All of these demonstrate that investigation and evidence collection system of functions and powers was gradually weakening the powers of the court and strengthening the powers of litigants, and it has had good effect in operation. However, with the development of market economy in recent years, there is a growing number for civil disputes. Some court sentences the cases negatively and there is a lack of guarantee in investigating and collecting evidence for litigants. In consequence, the truth is unclear and there is a shortage of evidence, which have done harm to the legitimate rights and interests of litigants and there appear a number of negative effects such as complaint and petition.The substantive justice has been greatly ignored. And the public credibility of court has descended. Therefore, there shouldn't be worsening or strengthening powers of investigating and collecting evidence; instead, there should be reasonable regulations according to the actual situation. The author intends to provide some enlightenment for the improvement of investigation and evidence collection system by the theory utilized in this thesis.This thesis consists of three parts. The first part is abstract, which mainly illustrates the topics of this thesis and the purpose, significance and the expected effect of the thesis. The second part is the main contents, which will be divided into four little parts. The first part focuses on the connotation and characteristics of the powers of investigating and collecting evidence and states the necessity of powers of investigating and collecting evidence. the second part introduces the legislation changes of investigation and evidence collection system and similar system of other counties. For the introduction of the system of other countries, the author mainly focuses on the two categories of laws, respectively introducing the law system of some representative countries, finally comparing the investigating and collecting evidence systems referred in the two categories of laws. The third part mainly elaborates the actual operation results of the powers of investigating and collecting evidence in civil actions and the problems existing in the operation. Then in the fourth part, the author discusses the rationality and necessity of powers of investigating and collecting evidence. In the fifth part, the author proposes the suggestions for improvement of powers of investigating and collecting evidence including improvement of investigating and collecting evidence for litigants, improvement of applying the rights of investigating and collecting evidence for litigants, and improvement of investigating and collecting evidence according to the job powers.The third part is conclusion part, which summarizes the whole thesis, and proposes some appeals.