On Good Faith Principle’s Application In China Civil Litigation

One of the main contents of the newly revised "Civil Procedure Law" is that it has established theprinciple of good faith. This has significant implications to the behavior of civil procedure to curb dishonestin litigation. But it’s not enough that only stipulates the principle of good faith as a fundamental principle ofregulation in general terms, it lacks corresponding applicable judicial interpretation and matching system.Therefore, this paper aims to study how to apply the principle of good faith in civil issues, and this paper isdivided into four parts:The first part describes the legal basis of good faith applicable in civil procedure law. This part startswith the meaning of the good faith principle in civil law, and then analyzes the principle of academicintegrity for the meaning of the good faith principle in civil procedure law. In addition, this part discussesthe doctrinal status of such principle in the civil procedure law. After that, the principle of good faithapplicable in civil procedure law is analyzed, and the author points out that the modification of the "CivilProcedure Law" affirms its applicability. At last, this part expounds the positive significance of good faithprinciple in civil procedure law.The second part discusses the current situation of the legislation and application about the good faithprinciple in civil procedure law. In accordance with the regulatory subject for the standard, this partelaborates the current situation from three categories of the parties, the judge and other participants inrespectively. First of all, the author lists the relevant legislation about good faith, and points out that thecurrent legislation has limitations that it can’t regulate the behavior of all dishonest action. Secondly,through the analysis of judicial practice specific cases, the author illustrates the current situation of civillitigation principle of good faith. Thus, the principle of good faith also highlights the urgency into law Thus,also highlights the urgency of the good faith principle into the law.The third part of this research is to comparative analysis the application of the good faith principle inthe civil procedure law of the main civil law country. Because our country is a statute law country sinceancient times, the modern legal system of our country is the type of civil law. In addition, the good faithprinciple is come from the continental law system, and there are codes of civil procedure in civil law countries. For various reasons prompted the design of the system during the legislative and judicial practicecivil law countries as a reference. Germany and Japan is the typical representative countries in continentallegal system. Therefore, in this section, I will choose Germany and Japan as the object of this research, andanalysis the good faith principle based on these three aspects that is the subject scope of the application ofgood faith principle, the way of application and the types of the good faith principle, and the results ofbreaking the good faith principle. And then provides experiences for our country to conduct the systemdesign.The fourth part is the good faith principle applies in our country’s civil lawsuit system construction.The scope of the subject of the principle of good faith applicable to, including not only the parties but alsothe court; In the way of application, we need to consider the relationship between the specific legal rulesand other basic principles of civil proceedings, so as to better play its role; In the type of application, for theapplicable type of the parties, can be divided into: rule out improper formation of the litigation status,estoppels, prohibit abuse of procedural rights, and prohibits false statements, etc. For the judges, it ismainly to prohibit abuse of discretion and its raid referee; Legal consequences of different subjects inviolation of the principle of good faith also different, we cannot undertake the unity of the rigid regulation.It must be combined with the specific circumstances and be treated differently, so as to achieve substantialfairness and justice. In addition, in order to ensure the good faith principle in civil procedural law, theparties, the judge, and other participants in the proceedings are proposed.