On The Principle Of Concentration

The principle of concentration, which is an important fundamental principle equal to the principles of publicity, orality and immediacy, lacks enough attention in China. From the course of Civil Procedural Law's revision in Germany, Japan and Taiwan in last century, it could be found that abandoning the Separated Trial Doctrine and establishing the Centralized Trial Doctrine has become a unified trend. The study on the principle of concentration is also an unavoidable topic in the course of Civil Procedural Law's revision in China. Due to the different extents of centralization, the patterns of the principle of concentration are different in countries. However, it's essential content is centralized argument over issues and discovery of proof, with the aim of finishing the trial in a single hearing. The value of principle of concentration lies in not only decreasing the litigation costs and increasing the litigation effect by reducing the frequencies of trial, but also guaranteeing the judges make judgments when their memory of cases is still fresh, reducing the judges'dependency on written file materials and thoroughly implementing the principle of immediacy. Furthermore, guaranteeing the participance of the parties and the public, strengthening the dependency of the parties of the jurisdiction, and securing the realization of the principle of publicity, by the way of substantiation the process of trial. As a fundamental principle in trial, the principle of concentration definitely influences the hearing structure and the instance structure greatly, while substantiating the process of trial. From the horizontal perspective, it makes the complete and independent pre-trial process necessary, to protects the"preparation process and centralized trial"two-stage-trial"structure from deformation. From the vertical perspective, it requires the parties to raise attack and defense measures in time and restricts them from posing new litigation materials, to complement the first trial process and reduce unnecessary appeals, protecting the balance of the whole instance structure. The parties'duty of litigation promotion, invalidity system and judges'liability of interpretations are the systematic embodiment of Centralized Trial Principle. To secure realization of the Centralized Trial Principle, parties should raise the attack and defense measure in time or in the limitation assigned by the judges. The parties who violate the duty of litigation promotion should be sanctioned by invalidity. To help the parties perform their litigation promotion and refrain the invalidity sanction from infringe on the parties'argument and testimonial rights, it is necessary to burden the liability of interpretation on judges.