An Empirical Study On The Judicial Recognition Of Joint Debts Of Husband And Wife In China

As an important part of the matrimonial property system,the marital joint debt is not only related to the stability and harmony within the marriage and family,but also closely related to the safety and order of the external market transactions,which is related to the balance of interests of multiple parties.Therefore,how to reasonably define the joint debts of husband and wife has always been the focus of the theoretical and practical circles,as well as the direction of China’s legislative efforts.Before the Civil Code,due to the conflict of relevant legal norms,confusion in the application of standards for the determination of joint debts of husband and wife and inconsistent decisions were common in judicial trials,until the promulgation of the Civil Code,this situation has been improved.Article 1064 of the Civil Code clarifies the specific types of joint debts of husband and wife in the form of legislation,and redistributes the burden of proof,establishing a more complete and systematic recognition rule than before,which to a certain extent effectively alleviates the contradictions of joint debts of husband and wife.However,Article 1064 is only a principle provision on the issue of joint debts of husband and wife,the specific division of various types of joint debts of husband and wife has not yet formed a unified standard,resulting in judicial practice for the identification of joint debts of husband and wife has not reached the ideal state expected by the legislation.Therefore,how to define all kinds of joint debts of husband and wife is still a difficult problem that needs to be solved.Based on the above-mentioned problem awareness,this paper firstly compares the norms and theories of the recognition of joint debts of husband and wife,and provides the theoretical and institutional basis for this study by sorting out and analyzing the value orientation of China’s legislature on the issue of joint debts of husband and wife and the rationality of the legal act theory as the theoretical basis.After that,this paper analyzes the current situation of the application of judicial determination of marital joint debts by using empirical research methods.Since Article 1064 of the Civil Code is a continuation of the Interpretation on Spousal Debt Disputes issued by the Supreme People’s Court in 2018,this paper covers cases in which the Interpretation on Spousal Debt Disputes was applied when conducting the case search.Through the statistical analysis of the published verdicts on joint debts of husband and wife by sampling,it is found that due to the ambiguity of the legislation,judges can only rely on logical reasoning and their own experience to make independent judgments when determining joint debts of husband and wife,and there is too broad room for discretion,so that in practice,the existence of the same factual behavior of joint intention of husband and wife is determined differently,and the needs of daily life of the family are determined by a single standard.The trend of“small presumption”,“joint production and operation of husband and wife” there is a conflict of thinking and other issues.At the same time,due to the limited ability of the creditor to prove,the distribution of the burden of proof has created a new imbalance.In In view of the above judicial practice problems,this paper firstly clarifies the basic values of the joint debt system of husband and wife,specifically including marriage protection,autonomy and transaction security.On the basis of clarifying the connotation of value,this paper proposes unified rules for the determination of marital agreement based on specific issues,grasps the daily needs of families with "necessity of purpose and appropriateness of means",clarifies the criteria for the determination of "joint production and operation of spouses",and provides suggestions for balancing the distribution of burden of proof,providing reference for the improvement of the marital joint debt system.