Study On Legislation And Judicial Application Of The Inspection Period

The inspection period rule is an important part of the liability system for defects guarantee.China's Contract Law uses two provisions,and the Supreme People's Court's Interpretation on the Application of Law in the Trial of Sales Contract Disputes uses six provisions to stipulate the rules,which shows its importance and complexity.This paper studies the rules of the inspection period,focusing on the problems existing in the legislation and judicial application,and less on the pure theoretical issues such as the nature of the inspection period.This paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is the study of the judicial application.The second,third and fourth chapters are the analysis of the irrationality of article 157 and article158 of the contract law.The fifth chapter is the suggestions for perfecting the rules of inspection period.In the first chapter,I sort out the judgment results of 70 civil contract disputes and find that in practice,it is difficult for the buyer's claim or defense to obtain compensation on the defects of the goods to be supported by the court,and the buyer will lose all the rights of contract remedy if he delays a little.Based on the analysis of the reasons for the judgment,I find some problems in this kind of lawsuit,such as the buyer's difficulty in providing evidence about quality defects and the court's different discretion on the reasonable period.Besides,the buyer's normal transaction behaviorsare wrongly regarded as the recognition of the quality of the subject matter by the court.In the second chapter,through the analysis of contract law and the comparison of overseas legislative models,I find that the buyer's notice time is neglected in China.Both the agreed inspection period and the reasonable period fail to distinguish the time for inspection and the time for notice,causing the notice period being compressed seriously,which is far from meeting the standard of "reasonable period",and the buyer will lose all contract relieves if he delays a little.In the third chapter,I question the rationality of the use of quality assurance period as the inspection period in the Contract Law.The Contract Law does not clearly define the concept of quality assurance period,and the understanding and use of quality assurance period of other laws and regulations as well as the judicial judgments also have contradictions.Through the comparison and analysis of relevant concepts such as warranty period and expiration date,I find that the quality warranty period is more similar to the concept of food warranty period and drug validity period,and is fundamentally different from the warranty period and inspection period in terms of function and legal effect.Therefore,there are obvious differences in the period length and starting time.The Contract law inappropriately use the concept of quality assurance period,which only increase the complexity of judicial application but can hardly achieve any positive effect of protecting the interests of the buyer.In the forth chapter,I analyze the legal consequences of the inspection period rule.I hold that the legal consequence of excluding all contract remedies are too severe for the buyer.On the one hand,it overprotects the interests of the seller and violates the legal principles of fairness and justice.Even if it protects the seller which has delivered the goods with goodwill,the degree of protection is worth re-examining.On the other hand,under the background of civil-commercial integration in China,the protection of consumers' interests has been neglected.To solve all the problems mentioned above,I attempts to give suggestions on improving the inspection period system in the fifth chapter,so as to rebalance the buyer and the seller in the interest of notice.First of all,it is necessary to make a cleardistinction between the inspection period and the notification period.Secondly,we should exclude the intervention of the quality assurance period for the reasonable period.Finally,the exclusion of all remedies shall be replaced by the exclusion of remedies limited to the loss suffered by the seller.