Who Will Responsibility For Lies On The Court

More and more litigant participants create obstacles to legal proceedings by telling a lie during the civil action. On one hand, the counterparty’s responsibility is raised; on the other hand, a lot of juridical resources are wasted. The rules of evidence under the civil procedure system in our country play an active role in the standardization and counter-balance of fact finding and legal application. However, the pursuance of legal truth offers opportunity to litigant participant to benefit unduly from statutory rules. Litigant participant who has gone through the controversial event is likely to make inauthentic and convenient statement in the court. Any of those exaggeration, minification or fabrication of the fact may cause enormous difficulties to the judgment of judge. Different with civil action, professional investigation personnel and means are involved in a criminal prosecution. Unfortunately, the investigation and collection of evidence can only depends on litigant participant in civil action, many evidences may faultiness thereof. Once the rules of evidence are applied, it may lead to the deviation between the found fact(legal truth) and the real fact. In this case, even the civil procedure is legal, the harm of a verdict which is made in pursuance of legal truth however is contrary to the fact as a result of the lack of evidence cannot be ignored, which includes: 1) unnecessary appeal and complain cases will arise, appellant will be exhausted of litigation; 2) the judicial resource will be wasted by initiating judicial procedure repeatedly for the same issue; 3) last but not least, the court and judicial credibility will be reduced specially among the people whose right was damaged or cannot be protected, court will come down to tooling. In order to prevent the deviation between the verdict and the truth, many judges choose to settle a lawsuit by mediation in the face of litigation obstacles made by litigant participants. However this fosters dishonesty in common practice – people will think telling a lie is nothing serious, no punishment will be applied by telling a lie and, unjust interest can be awarded through mediation. The introduction of “Civil action shall abide by principle of good faith” into Civil Procedure Law signifies that the principle of good faith has been established in Civil Procedure Law in our country, principle of good faith has become an indispensible part of the basic principle system of Civil Procedure Law of our country. Notwithstanding the principle of good faith has been established by new Civil Procedure Law, the systematization and specification of rules and regulation is still required. This article will analyze the reason and harmfulness of telling a lie in court; elaborate the practical significance and theoretical foundation of non-allowance of telling a lie in court; furthermore, seeks the means on the prevention and punishment of telling a lie in court and, the guidance of honest litigation, therefore providing some help on the specialization of the principle of good faith in the guidance of court activities.