On The Essence Of Res Judicata

The essence of Res Judicata is to figure out the matter that why judgments are of ResJudicate and it is the basis and just foundation for Res Judicate as well. Classical theories onthe essence of Res Judicata mainly include the old substantive law theory，new substantivelaw theory, old procedural law theory and new procedural law theory. Both old and newsubstantive law theories hold that Res Judicata lies in conifrming that judgments can createsubstantive laws and form new substantive rights and legal relations among parties involved.Both old and new procedural law theories emphasize that Res Judicata has the pure validity interms of procedural law and repudiate that it has the validity of substantive laws. Not only arethe theories above inconsistent with the history of the Res Judicata system or the current ResJudicata system, but they also fail to justify themselves logically. This essay holds as follows:the essence of Res Judicata under the system of divinity evidence indicates that judgmentsconfirm the original facts and legal relations involved in the cases in accordance with thedivine inspiration, which is a confirmation of absolute facts; the essence of Res Judicata underthe system of free evaluation of the evidence indicates that judgments confirm the oirginalfacts and legal relations of the cases in accordance with human rationality, which is aconfirmation of legal facts. In brief, no matter whether it is under the system of divinityevidence or legal evidence or free evaluation of the evidence, the just foundation and basis ofRes Judicata lie in that the facts confirmed by the judgments are the conifrmation of theoriginal facts and relations involved in the cases. Under Chinese classical system ofreasonable investigation of evidence，except the emperor who is honored as the son of thehaven, judgments made by other levels of ofifcials have no authority to conifrm facts.Therefore, the trial of cases is free from the limitation of the level of trial, for which thesystem of Res Judicata does not exist. The criteria of objective facts evidence in our countrypursue the absolute substantive justice and the centralization of various litigation values.From the angle of theory, each judgment or at least each legally effective judgment (beingenforced) ought to overlappingly reveal the truth of the cases and be of absolute validity.However, both the legislature and the enforcer are aware that it lacks realistic possibility andrefuse to admit that judgments can confirm facts of the cases or to admit that judgment oughtto confirm legal facts. To pursue absolute substantive truth，our country has not built the system of Res Judicata yet, which proves from the opposite angle that the basis and justfoundation for Res Judicata lie in that the judgments can conifrm facts of the cases. The lackof the system of Res Judicata in our country gives rise to a chaotic situation of the judgmentsin terms of their validity in practice in our country, affecting the establishment of the judicialauthority in our country. Based on this, it is urgent to build the system of Res Judicata in ourcountry while the evidence system is being rebuilt.