A Study On The Lawyer's Civil Investigation Order System

On December 6,2019,the Sichuan Higher People's Court,together with other 19 entities,including the Sichuan Provincial Public Security Department and the Sichuan Provincial Department of justice,jointly issued Measures on the Application of Investigation Orders in Civil Trials and Enforcement Phases(Trial).Prior to this,the higher people's courts of Shanghai,Beijing,Jiangsu,Anhui,Tianjin,Hebei and other provinces(regions and municipalities)had issued and implemented documents about the lawyer's civil investigation order system.The lawyer's civil investigation order system has achieved good results in implementation,but its efficiency is weakened due to the lack of a nationwide unified legislation and their different and imperfect provisions in the documents.It requires a unified national legislative standard in order to further clarify its legal status and standardize its system content.The body of the dissertation is divided into four parts.The first part discusses the connotation and significances of the lawyer's civil investigation order system.Firstly,its connotation is explained from four aspects,including the concepts,the legal nature,the characteristics and the basis.Secondly,the significances of its implementation is probed from five aspects: ensuring the justice of civil procedure and maintaining judges judicially neutral,improving the parties' ability to provide evidences,improving the efficiencies of civil procedure,alleviating the contradiction of "more cases but fewer judges" in court,and enhancing the lawyer's professional honor.The second part is a comparative study on the lawyer's civil investigation order systems in foreign countries.This part makes a comparative study of France,Germany,Japan in the civil law system,as well as Britain and the United States in the common law system,investigating their lawyer's civil investigation and evidence collection systems similar to that of in China,including instruments order and witnesses summoning systems.Finally,these systems and their beneficial reference to China are analyzed.The third part observes the practices of lawyer's civil investigation order system in China.Firstly,it observes the practices of the civil investigation order system of lawyers in Shanghai,Anhui,BeijingTianjin-Hebei regions and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.Secondly,it examines the results of the lawyer's civil investigation order system.Finally,it explores the problems existing in the judicial practices of the lawyer's civil investigation order system.Based on the discussions of the former three parts and the problems in practice,the forth part discusses the realization paths of building the lawyer's civil investigation order system in China,such as determining the legal status and regulating the implementation procedures.