An Elementary Analysis Of Lawyer Witness

Since1988when lawyer witness was firstly adopted in China as one of the maincontent for lawyers in non-litigation legal affairs, it has been developing for a shortperiod of twenty years. At present the proof system in China is mainly composed ofnotary, lawyer witness and other private evidences. Lawyer witness refers to a legalactivity that a law firm entrusted by its party appoints lawyers to notarize theauthenticity and legality of the legal fact or behavior that the party applies. In manycommon law countries, there is no special notarization institution or notarizationlegislation, and it is generally executed by qualified lawyers. Legal facts or behaviorsafter being witnessed by lawyers have equivalent legal effect to a notarization, andhave a national recognition of its legal effect. It is closely related to the specificconditions of these common law countries and their lawyers’ quality and social status.China is a nation of statute law, and notarization institutions are set up to exercise theright to prove. To seek effective legal protection, parties often choose the notary ratherthan lawyer witness. In practice, due to the absence of corresponding laws andregulations to clearly define lawyer witness, parties lack the necessary knowledge oflawyer witness. Meanwhile, lawyers in different regions in witness are underprovisions that are not unified, thus lawyer witness is relatively in chaos. In addition,it happens many times that lawyer witness instruments were disallowed in litigation,which indirectly makes the parties lose faith in lawyer witness, thus some lawyers arenot willing to provide legal witness service, which greatly hinder the development of lawyers witness service. In recent years, with the rapid development of non-litigationbusiness, more and more legal facts or legal behavior need to be legally recognized,but it obviously can not meet the demand of economic development only dependingon the notarization. In this circumstance, lawyer witness begins to be applied tovarious fields and plays a positive role.This paper takes lawyer witness system as the research object, and compares theconnections and differences between lawyer witness and notarization. It analyzes theapplication of lawyer witness in China as well as its possible legal issues, focusing onthe establishment and perfection of lawyer witness. This paper intends to explorefrom the following five sections:Section One introduces the origin of lawyer witness and its development. Thissection lists part of the present provisions by Bar Associations for lawyers at all levelsin China to lawyer witness system, and summarizes the implication of lawyer witness.Meanwhile, considering the inalienability of witness and notarization, this sectionintroduces the origin and development of lawyer witness and notarization in westerncountries and regions as well as in China.Section Two mainly introduces the similarities and differences betweennotarization and lawyer witness in China, clearly stating that notarization cannotreplace lawyer witness.Section Three analyzes from the multiple perspectives the advantages ofestablishing lawyer witness system and discusses the necessity of the establishment.Section Four introduces the application and development of lawyer witness intraditional and new fields at present, exploring the legal issues existing in theestablishment of lawyer witness system.Section Five mainly discusses lawyer witness system from the perspectives oflegal risk prevention and principles, attempting to construct a better lawyer witnesssystem.