On The Authentication System In Civil Litigation

With the development of the reform in the civil economic trial pattern, authentication system in civil lawsuit has been much concerned by the theoretic and the practical. After the litigant has raised the evidence, the judge ought to authenticate the evidence, such as whether the evidence is related to the truth to be certified, whether the evidence is in compliance with the statutory procedures, whether the evidence has proven ability. Giving evidence and cross-examination are the precondition and basis of authentication. On the contrary, authentication is the result for giving evidence and cross-examination. So authentication, together with giving evidence and cross-examination, constitute the heart of the whole courts hearing .Authentication system in civil lawsuit, which is directly related to the impartiality of civil proceeding and the legitimacy of civil outcome, is very important in the civil litigation. However, our current authentication system is still relatively weak in civil litigation.Owing to the affectation of the traditional super-powers litigation model a long period, our country has not systemic civil authentication system, which makes that it is difficult to achieve litigation efficient and impartial. A realistic approach in the process of authentication is used after the People's Republic of China established for a long time, which is proven unscientific in the theory and practice. The system of free evaluation of evidence through inner conviction has appeared in Supreme People's Court's Several Provisions on the Civil Litigious Evidence in some extent, and some specific authentication rules are formulated to restrict the judge's evaluation. In a word, it is a new measure of our authentication system. However, owing to legislative technology, there are also some shortcomings in it, such as the legislation is obscure and the authentication rules are not complete. With the world economic integration, the contact in the world is becoming much closer, and the trend of drawing and complementing from each other in the economic, political and legal systems is reinforced. Therefore, combined with our present situation, it is feasible and necessary to learn from the developed certification system in western countries and to set up a suitable civil authentication system in our country.This article has four parts.The first part describes generally some basic questions, such as the meaning and elements of authentication, the method of authentication, and the value of the authentication system.The second part studies the authentication systems in the history in detail. It introduces the emergence, development and content of god judge authentication system, the legal authentication system and the discretional evaluation authentication system. And it gives evaluation on the advantages and disadvantages of them.The third part illustrates systematically the authentication systems in our country at all stages. Specifically, it introduces the god judge authentication system appeared in early time, the authentication system with strong feudal despotism color in feudal society, the disorderly authentication system in modern society because of the incompletely reform, the authentication system with a realistic approach and the authentication system with the color of discretionary evaluation after the People's Republic of China is found.The fourth part first generalizes the deficiencies of our current authentication system in civil litigation as following four aspects: the unclear choice of authentication system, the incompletion of authentication rules, the insecurity of authentication publicity, and too much subjective and arbitrary authentication. Then it improves some specific measures combining with our present situation from following four aspects: selecting modern the system of discretionary evaluation of evidence without hesitation, setting up reasonable and complete authentication rule system, improving the publicity of authentication and establishing an effective monitoring mechanism.