Findings Of Fact In The Notarial Process

In recent years, notary services in our country have made big progress and research on notarization theory also grows vigorously. However, most theoretical researches on notarization in our county stay at the level of value, focusing the preventive function and taking little count of notarization itself, which result of the theoretical researches on notarization falling behind the notary practice. Notarization is the process of legal identification, which is just the origin of its preventative function. The paper focuses on the fact-finding at the visual angle of a notary.In our country, notarization is an identification activity on authenticity and legality of legal issues made by special authority on the basis of procedures defined by laws and at application of related parties. And the fact-finding is the core. During the process of fact-finding, a notary needs to determine a specific criterion, which shall be the basis for examining facts. There are two viewpoints on identification criterion in academic circle and practical circle, the objective authenticity and legal authenticity. However, any criterion does not reflect the real situations of fact-finding fully. In the paper, the author holds that the fact-finding in notarization should hold "inner conviction within the frame of legal evidence" as the criterion. The system of legal evidence is the essence of collective wise of human in certain period, and the inner conviction of a notary is the important guarantee for analyzing the issue that can not be solved under the system of legal evidence. Therefore, the inner conviction of a notary within the frame of legal evidence should be the best description of fact-finding in notarization at the present stage.To perform the fact-finding criterion in notarization practice, a notary needs to use various identifying methods. As different notarization stages need different identification methods, the paper will discuss them separately in different stages. The application of related parties is the essential condition of starting a notarization. The acceptance of application is also the process for a notary to make formal examination on applicant's qualification, qualification of issue for notarization, completeness of evidences, legality of evidences and relevance among evidences. After formal examination, the core substantial examination starts. In the fact-finding a notary participates in as a person in the know, he/she focuses on how to identify related parties and how to describe the process of issue for notarization and finally makes correct identification. In the identification after a notary gets involved, he/she should focus on examining various evidence and finally makes correction identification.In short, fact-finding is the core of notarization. However, both the facts a notary experiences and the facts shown by evidences may deviate from facts and be processed artificially. It needs a notary to follow laws and use various methods to examine them. And the process must be involved in a notary's subjective judgment. Therefore, a notary must be precious and prudent, and make self-certification before making other-person-certification, namely convincing himself/herself before convincing other persons. Only such, the result of fact-finding can be close mostly to objective.