Research On Electronic Delivery Of The Domestic Civil Procedure System

As a pivotal procedural design in civil litigation,delivery plays a very important role in both parties and the court.This system is conducive to the protection of the litigant's rights and the proceeding of litigation.With the development of science and technology and the times,electronic delivery way is favored by the court and the parties for its efficiency,convenience,economy and other characteristics.In1999,China had already applied electronic delivery in the field of foreign-related maritime litigation,and it was not until the amendment of the new Civil Procedure Law in 2012 that the legal status of electronic service was officially confirmed.However,only Article 87 of the new Civil Procedure Law in 2012 stipulates that electronic service can use fax and e-mail,but for other emerging ways.The mode of service is not specified.It excludes the documents that can not be applied to electronic service,i.e.judgments,rulings and conciliation documents.However,it does not stipulate how to deal with the cases where the parties can not directly serve them for various reasons and choose the applicable electronic service independently.It stipulates that the specific date of service served by fax and e-mail should be the date of arrival in the parties' system,but ignores the parties concerned.When a person evades litigation or arrives at the litigant system due to problems such as network signals,the litigant does not really confirm the receipt,nor does it stipulate that the litigant does confirm that he did not appear in court after the receipt,and whether he can decide or withdraw the lawsuit by default as the traditional way of delivery.In the subsequent Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China in 2015,only articles 135 and 136 made supplementary provisions,which stipulated that the parties should sign a confirmation letter when they agreed to apply electronic service,but for the defendant who received the summons for the first time,electronic service was totally inapplicable.How to deal with the situation is not specified in the legislation.Because of the above legislative reasons,electronic service can not make full use of and play its own value in judicial practice.It also makes judges hesitate to take the initiative to choose this advanced mode of service.The courts in different regions also have their own set of norms because of the imperfection of the judicial system,which makes the parties and lawyers in different regions unable to make full use of it.There are great difficulties in its application.Sothe author started the discussion on the judicial and legislative aspects of the electronic service system.After sorting out the legislation and judicial aspects,the author finally put forward the following suggestions for the above-mentioned issues: in the legislative field,we should improve the relevant legislation of electronic service,improve the standard of success in service,assume the responsibility for failure in service,and make specific points for the consent of the addressee.At the technical level,we can strengthen cooperation with Internet companies,adopt mandatory bullet window technology and mobile phone service app,and other supporting measures,so as to deal with the difficult problems of civil electronic service more efficiently and protect judicial justice.