The Definition Of Third Party In Civil Proceedings

Serving as the legal source for the third party with independent claim right or with dependent claim right to participate in civil proceedings, the 56^th provision in China's Civil Procedural Law, due to its inaccuracy, turns out inadequate, both theoretically and practically, to offer a clear definition of the two kinds of "third party". The situation is even worsened by the necessary joint participant, which bears so much similarity to the third pa(?)ty as to cause more confusion. There then arises the difficulty of identifying the third party in practice. Targeted at the problem, this paper, based on a case study, discusses and clarifies the basic theoretical categories, such as "independent claim right", "object of an action" and "legal interest relation" from the point view of "referee interpretation", and thus points out and rectifies the mistakes in the concept of "third party". This, together with an analysis of the structural characteristics of the two kinds of "third party", makes it possible to fix the substantial point of the third party participating in proceedings, provide a practicable criterion to distinguish each other and summarize the brief difference between the third party with independent claim right, that with dependent claim right and the necessary joint participant.The paper consists of four parts with an introduction.The introduction delineates the necessity, significance and intention of the writing.The first part, out of an analysis of a legal case, reaches the principal problems inthe definition of "third party"——the diverging opinions on the essence and forms of"dependent claim right" and on the signification of the source for the third party to participate in proceedings, the confusion of the relation between "object of an action" and "claims of an action" in law cases, and the lack of explicit techniques to identify and judge "object matters".The second part, on the basis of a research of the signification and forms of "independent claim right", points out that independent claim right is not limited to the third party with independent claim right, but belongs to the third party with dependent claim right as well. With further discussion of "object of an action", the idea is introduced that object matters must be detailed and that judgment should be made only after the subject, the object and the content of a legal relation are systematically considered.In the third part, grounded on the structural characteristics of the two kinds of "third party", the essential signification of the third party participating in proceedings are explained: the distinctiveness of the third party with independent claim right lies in that their independent claim right is related to object matters; however, the distinctiveness of the third party with dependent claim right lies in that disputes over object matters have uncertain influences on their rights and interests. Accordingly, the criterion for defining "third party" is provided, and the distinctions between the three kinds of participants in civil proceedings are summarized.In the last part, after the legal case is thoroughly studied on the basis of the prior analysis, a conclusion is drawn and the questions in the first part are answered.