The “Several Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Evidence for Civil Actions” (2019 Amendment) will come into force on May 1, 2020.
The “Several Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Evidence for Civil Actions” (hereinafter referred to as the “2001 Version”) has been adopted for nearly 20 years, and it could not solve the new problems in the civil judicial practice, such as a party take advantage of the evidence rules maliciously, the implementation of the expert opinions, electronic data and etc.. In view of this, the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court adopted the amendment of the “Several Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Evidence for Civil Actions” on Oct. 14, 2019, and the amendment will come into force on May 1, 2020.
2019 Amendment is comprehensive, due to the limitation in length, we only introduce several important provisions which are newly added.
1. To strengthen the regulation of the negative response of the parties
In the judicial trials, sometimes a party refuses to be present or be questioned, or the party is present but does not acknowledge or deny, then it is difficult for the court to deal with such hot potato. Regarding this, 2019 Amendment has stipulated two provisions.
(1) Article 6 prescribes that for a necessary joint action, if one or several of the joint litigants make a confession, but the other co-litigants do not acknowledge or deny, and do not state their opinions clearly upon explanation and enquiry by the judge, they shall be deemed as confession by all co-litigants.
(2) Article 66 prescribes that where a party concerned refuses to be present without any justified reason, or refuses to sign or read out the letter of guarantee, or refuses to accept questioning, if there is no other evidence to prove the facts on which evidence is to be given, the people’s court shall rule against the litigant.
2. To regulate the requirements of electronic evidence
In 2008, the Supreme People’s Court issued the “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Hearing of Cases by Internet Courts”, in which the application of the electronic evidence has been explained comprehensively. However, because this judicial interpretation could only be applied to the cases heard by internet courts, it is still questionable on whether this judicial interpretation could be applied in the cases heard by other courts. In view of this, 2019 Amendment has set the requirements of electronic evidence in a systematic way.
(1) Article 14 prescribes the categories of electronic data, which include the communication information of network application services such as instant messaging, and etc..
(2) Article 15 prescribes the requirements of the original copy of the electronic data, which include a duplicate copy of an electronic data produced by its producer which is consistent with the original copy, or a printout of electronic data or any other visible and recognizable output media, shall be deemed as an original copy of the electronic data.
(3) Article 93 prescribes 7 factors for determining the authenticity of electronic evidence, which include the creation, storage and transmission of electronic data rely shall be complete and reliable; the methods of saving, transmitting and extracting shall be reliable; the electronic data are formed and stored in the normal current activities; and etc..
(4) Article 94 prescribes 5 circumstances that the court could confirm its authenticity. There are 2 circumstances deserve attention: