On The Reward For Evidence In Civil Litigation

Evident-obtaining difficulties lead to the reward for evidence in the judicial practice,especially in the field of criminal litigation and administrative enforcement of law. But incivil litigation, the procedural law stipulates nothing about it. The blank of legislation leadsto theoretical controversy and the chaos in civil judicial practice. Accurate identification ofthe evidentiary effectiveness of evidence by reward in civil litigation is of criticalimportance. Specifically, in terms of qualification of evidence, evidence by reward doesnot belong to civil illegal evidence, so it has the qualification of evidence. In terms ofweight of evidence, we should adopt different standards of review according to differentkinds of evidence by reward. For oral evidence by reward, the review of weight ofevidence should be relatively stricter than ordinary evidence. It is suggested that thewitnesses by reward should appear in court and testify instead of submitting a writtentestimony; For real evidence by reward, the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard incriminal litigation can be used as reference when reviewing the weight of evidence. Onlywhen the authenticity is assured can we take the real evidence as the basis of verdict. It isrecommended to add authentication rules for evidence by reward in relevant provisions ofcivil procedural law. In addition, it is necessary to distinguish the reward for evidence fromself-help remedy, suborn the witness and the trap forensics in order to define the extensionof the reward for evidence. We can regulate the reward for civil evidence in the futureamendments of civil procedural law, in terms of the scope of application, rewardinformation release, the cross-examination and authentication of evidence by reward, andthe amount and undertaking of reward, thus better improving the system of the reward forcivil evidence in our country.