Free evaluation of evidence (also known as inner conviction system in China) refers to the system in which judges judge the choice and probative force of evidence through inner conscience and rationality according to the law, and finally form conviction.
Free evaluation of evidence is a concept in foreign judicial trials, and the concept used by China is inner conviction.
Question 2: What is "free evaluation of evidence"? The principle of free evaluation of evidence is often called free evaluation of evidence doctrine in foreign legal documents.
The principle of free evaluation of evidence is a compulsory norm in public law, and the parties and prosecutors are not allowed to change or exclude the application by consensus, nor are judges allowed to exclude the application at will. The main connotation of the principle of free evaluation of evidence is that the law does not set mechanical rules in advance to instruct or bind the judge, but the judge can judge the evidence and determine the facts freely according to the rules of experience, logical rules and his own rational conscience according to the specific case. Free evaluation of evidence (also known as inner conviction system in China) refers to the system that judges judge the choice and probative force of evidence through inner conscience and rationality according to the law, and finally form conviction.
The system of free evaluation of evidence requires judges to reasonably judge the probative value of evidence based on "conscience" and "rationality" and using their own legal knowledge and trial experience. In the late Middle Ages, the legal evidence system prevailed in Europe, and judges could only use certain legal evidence to verify the facts, without asking whether it was in line with reality or whether the judges were convinced. This system seriously fetters judges, making them unable to make reasonable decisions freely. Duport, a French bourgeois revolutionary and jurist, first proposed to abolish the legal evidence system and establish the principle of free evaluation of evidence in legislation. In 1791, the French Constitutional Assembly adopted the draft of taking free evaluation of evidence. In 188, the French Code of Criminal Procedure made further provisions. Later, the legislation of various bourgeois countries in Europe also stipulated the principle of free evaluation of evidence, which developed into an important principle for judging evidence in civil law countries. The system of free evaluation of evidence has become a universal evidence principle adopted by most countries.
question 3: what is free evaluation of evidence? Free evaluation of evidence is the principle that the judge forms evaluation of evidence based on free judgment according to certain rules and the data of the case trial office without direct evidence to prove the facts of the case, so as to determine the facts of the case (defined by the author). It can be seen that free evaluation of evidence gives judges great discretion. Some scholars say that "free evaluation of evidence is a kind of liberation for judges." This makes sense.
Question 4: Understanding of free evaluation of evidence. The choice and probative force of all litigation evidence are not stipulated in advance by the law, but are freely judged by judges and jury officers according to their inner conviction. The inner conviction formed by the judge through the examination and judgment of evidence is called evaluation of evidence. If the evaluation of evidence reaches the level of conviction, it is called "conviction". In this sense, the free evaluation of evidence is also called "inner conviction". The judge only judges the facts of the case according to his own evidence. Article 71 of China's Civil Procedure Law stipulates: "The statements made by the people's court to the parties shall be examined and determined according to other evidence of the case."
Question 5: The first principle of evidence of free evaluation of evidence is the limitation of judges' qualifications. The first condition that free evaluation of evidence should have is human condition, and the admission system for judges is strict to ensure that judges have good political and professional qualities and good conduct. Long Zongzhi, a Chinese scholar, can infer that the system depends on conditions, but under the support of certain conditions, the system also has a kind of reaction to conditions. That is to say, the system reform has a "pull" effect on the relevant conditions to some extent. Although China lacks the so-called "learned lawyers group" and many judges lack modern legal consciousness and ethics, the establishment of modern free evaluation of evidence can not only improve the requirements of judges' quality, but also "pull" the improvement of judges' quality in China. Second, it is clearly required that judges should rationally evaluate and accept evidence in accordance with their conscience. When judging a case, a judge supervises the process of judging a case through the rules of experience and logic. The so-called logical law is the rule that only people can think correctly, which mainly includes the law of identity, the law of exclusiveness and the law of contradiction. The main function of the logical law is to provide a logical tool to push down the unknown facts from the known facts based on the rule of experience. Logic is a tool of legal thinking. Fair justice needs logical force and logical procedure to guarantee it. The so-called rule of experience is a rational understanding of the common phenomena and common laws of the objective outside world formed by people in long-term production and life and scientific experiments. The rule of experience is general, it is a self-evident proposition, and it is the main basis for judges to evaluate evidence. Logical reasoning and daily life experience are the requirements for the regulation of judges' logical rules and empirical rules, which can be simply summarized as rationality. A judge should be a rational person, and his experience, reasoning and free evaluation of evidence should be based on rationality. The laws of logic and experience constitute the internal constraints on free evaluation of evidence. Any self-discipline is not as powerful as that played by his law firm. Under the condition that the internal restriction mechanism is also uncertain, the external restriction mechanism is the lowest guarantee for the implementation of free evaluation of evidence. Here, I think that in addition to establishing and perfecting the principle of direct verbal evidence, establishing the system of pre-trial examination of evidence, perfecting the mechanism of trial supervision, and reforming the trial book, the other thing is to strengthen the supervision of the parties, that is, to give them supervisory power. Lujun believes that people are born free and equal, and it is inevitable that people will enter the social state from the natural state. In the process of this transformation, every citizen sacrifices part of his private power, transfers it to the collective, forms the public power of the society, and voluntarily accepts the guidance of the public power, in order to better enjoy the free property and personal safety. Judging from the current litigation mode in our country, although the parties have been allowed to argue to a great extent, the color of authoritarianism is still quite strong, and the court has not formed a reasonable judicial distance from the prosecution and the defense. The defense is still the weak side. Therefore, when the parties are involved in litigation, that is, when their rights are threatened, they should transform their previous share of power given to the collective into the power of supervision. On the one hand, this is to normalize the "lame" litigation triangle, on the other hand, it can also supervise the judge to correctly exercise the principle of free evaluation of evidence, so that its potential danger can be eliminated in the norms of the system. In short, as long as there is a good and sound restriction mechanism, free evaluation of evidence will play a great scientific and functional role.
Question 6: The characteristics of the free evaluation of evidence system * * * have four characteristics, which are presented for your reference:
1. The principle of legal truth
This principle should include the following aspects: First, the judge should speak according to the evidence in the free evaluation of evidence, and the evidence that conforms to the rules of evidence should be followed in turn, instead of using arbitrary language, and should pass without doing anything. In civil proceedings, civil evidence is scientific, social, athletic and logical. We should be good at using these characteristics to conduct research and analysis and draw scientific conclusions when evaluating evidence freely. Secondly, it should be limited by procedural justice. Whether it's the ex officio litigation mode or the litigant litigation mode, we should abide by all litigation procedures, fully protect the litigant's litigation rights and ensure substantive justice with procedural justice. Under the idea of pursuing objective truth, we can find objective truth to the maximum extent, and then ensure the fairness of free evaluation of evidence. Third, comprehensively review the relevant evidence and facts, including: the social, political, economic, cultural and natural environment background of behavior occurrence, development and change; Social value judgment and its implied conditions; The level of science and technology; Changes in laws and regulations and the resulting changes in the value judgment of the parties, etc. At the same time, when judging the probative force of evidence, we must follow the rules of experience and logic.
2. The principle of legality
It is a creative process for a judge to draw a conclusion after evaluating the symbolic definition of civil evidence through free evaluation of evidence. Theoretically, there is a distinction between legal and illegal. Legality principle: the judgment of civil evidence should follow this principle, and if there is no evidence to deny the evidential ability of a certain evidence, it should be confirmed; This principle should be followed in the process, form and conclusion of civil behavior; We should also confirm the legitimacy of the evaluation of evidence from the results of the judgment. Following the principle of legality is a kind of inferential and solid method under the premise of following the objective truth, fully guaranteeing the litigation rights of the parties and exhausting all litigation means. Of course, the parties should also be allowed to give evidence to overturn the assumptions or presumptions. Therefore, in the face of choice, the judge can only choose legal.
3. Rationality principle
Rationality principle is the supplement and development of legality principle. In many cases, civil evidence is the civil act itself. In the process of identification and analysis of civil acts, there are many problems in the understanding and application of laws and regulations. It is inevitable to use some theories and methods of legal science, especially in the supplement of legal loopholes, the supplement of legal value and the measurement of interests, and it is more important to follow the reasonable principle. When a judge evaluates evidence by heart, the objects are mainly the probative force, the burden of proof and the relationship between evidences. Therefore, when making a rational judgment by free evaluation of evidence, the judge should pursue the objective truth and judge according to the facts, supplemented by the principle of good faith, and make a full investigation of various factors affecting the value judgment according to objective standards.
4, fully respect the principle of party autonomy
Respect for party autonomy is an important principle of civil law as a private law, and as a civil litigation activity to solve private rights disputes, it should also fully respect party autonomy (except for the interests of the state, the public and the third party). The parties and related personnel are direct participants in civil activities, and they know the truth of civil activities best, so it is the requirement of legal truth to make an explanation. Fully respecting the autonomy of the parties' will make it easier for judges to judge the value more objectively when evaluating evidence freely, which is more in line with the fairness and justice expected by the parties, and is also conducive to the settlement of disputes and litigation. In order to prevent the arbitrariness of the judge's interpretation of the evidence when evaluating the evidence freely, and also to prevent the subjective arbitrariness of the parties in the interpretation of the evidence, we should objectively identify the meaning of the civil evidence at that time according to the law of subjective consistency and the process of development and change, according to the evidence provided by the parties.
question 7: the connotation of the free evaluation of evidence system. the free evaluation of evidence system is a basic litigation evidence system widely used in countries that implement the rule of law today to judge evidence and identify the parties to a case. Free evaluation of evidence system, also known as inner conviction system, is an evidence system that completely entrusts the determination of the connection between claims and evidence, the judgment of the evidential force of evidence itself, the understanding of the correlation between evidence and facts, and the analysis of the sufficiency of evidence to the judge's rationality and conscience. From the perspective of historical development, there are two types of free evaluation system, one is the continental free evaluation system with positive substantive realism and authoritarianism as the background, that is, the inner conviction system, and the other is the Anglo-American free evaluation system with negative substantive realism and litigantism as the background, that is, the system of excluding rationality doubts. To grasp the system of free evaluation of evidence comprehensively and deeply, we must first understand the legal evidence system. The so-called legal evidence system is a kind of evidence system widely implemented in various autocratic monarchy countries in Europe in the late Middle Ages. It is characterized in that the probative value and significance of each evidence are stipulated in advance by legal provisions, and the judge only mechanically calculates the probative force of evidence according to legal methods, decides its choice, and determines the facts accordingly. Although from the perspective of historical development, the legal evidence system is obviously more progressive than the divine evidence system prevailing in slave society, it is considered unscientific because it ignores the subjective logical thinking ability and activities of judges and jurors, and tries to solve complex evidence judgment problems rigidly and absolutely with simple formulas prescribed by law, just like using mathematical formulas, so the result can only reach the "formal truth" in accordance with the law at most, and the "substantive truth" that reflects the real situation of the case. Because it is impossible to talk about the accuracy of judgment simply by pursuing form. Moreover, under the formal legal evidence system, in order to meet the requirements of some evidence quantity, people often use coercion, even torture, to extract confessions. Obviously, the legal evidence system is contrary to freedom and human rights. Therefore, as early as the 17th century, some scholars launched sharp attacks on it under the slogans of "natural human rights" and "humanitarianism". From the end of 18th century to the beginning of 19th century, European countries successively established democratic regimes, and the legal system changed accordingly. On the ruins of the destroyed feudal lords' courts, jury courts were established, and the inquisitorial litigation system was replaced by the debating litigation system, and the legal evidence system was replaced by the free evaluation system. The goal of these judicial reforms is to establish a humane, free and democratic judicial system. Chinese scholars have roughly the same understanding of the connotation of free evaluation of evidence. For example, Mr. Zeng Sikong thinks: "The principle of free evaluation of evidence means that the probative force of evidence is not prescribed by law in advance, but judges and jurors rely on their own conscience to make free judgments." In the process of judgment, it is not affected by any outside influence. The law does not require the judge to explain the reasons and basis, but only cares about whether he has formed inner conviction. Professor Bi Yuqian believes: "The so-called free evaluation of evidence system refers to the choice of evidence, the probative force of evidence and the rules for determining the facts of a case. The law does not prescribe it in advance, so that judges and jurors can rationally form a free conviction and freely judge the facts of a case according to their own conscience." It can be seen that the essence of the free evaluation of evidence system is that the law does not stipulate in advance the probative force of evidence and the determination of the facts of the case, and the judges are free to judge according to the instructions of conscience and rationality. The so-called "freedom" here means that judges and jurors are inspired by "conscience" and "rationality" when examining and judging evidence and ascertaining the facts of a case, and are not subject to any restrictions or constraints. The so-called "evaluation of evidence" refers to the inner belief formed by the judge through the examination and judgment of evidence. And this kind of "heart evidence" reaches the level of being convinced or excluding any reasonable doubt, and it becomes "sure" This "inner conviction" formed by freely judging evidence is considered as a rational state and the basis for judges to determine the facts of the case. The system of free evaluation of evidence has been criticized in China. After the reform and opening up, the shackles of "Left" thinking in the legal field have gradually weakened, and people have been able to cast a more objective and fair eye on western legal thoughts, including free evaluation of evidence. Especially with the continuous improvement and revision of the theory and practice of free evaluation of evidence in western countries, more and more Chinese scholars hold a positive and positive attitude towards it and advocate adopting it for reference. The promulgation and implementation of the Supreme People's Court's "Several Provisions on Evidence in Civil Proceedings" (which came into effect on April 1, 22) marks the establishment of the modern principle of free evaluation of evidence in China, but the name is China ... > >
question 8: the principle of free evaluation of evidence is based on the principle of evaluation of evidence.