Study On The Judgment Criteria Of Civil Similar Judicial Cases In China

In order to unify the application of law and improve judicial credibility,China has explored and established a guiding case system and similar case search specifications,and the Supreme People’s Court has issued a series of guiding opinions to this end.However,at present,neither theory field nor practice have come up with a set of replicable and generalizable criteria for judging similar cases to fundamentally solve the problem of how to judge whether cases are similar.The lack of judgment standards for similar cases has greatly curbed the development of the similar case search system and dragged down the pace of relying on cases to unify the application of law.By comparing the relevant provisions on judgment standards for similar cases in the Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Search for Similar Cases in the Application of Law(for Trial Implementation)and the Measures of the Supreme People’s Court for the Implementation of the Unified Application of Law,combing through the current research status of judgment standards for similar cases in the academic circles,and analyzing the forms,judgment standards,and references for the emergence of similar cases in judicial practice,it is not difficult to find that China has initially formed an objective judgment standard for similar cases based on "material facts" and supplemented by multiple judgment elements.However,there is debate in the academic circles on how to match the judgment elements to form a reasonable judgment standard for similar cases.Moreover,in the process of making judgments on similar cases,the applicable criteria for judging similar cases are not uniform and lack stability.In view of the fact that the system of similar case retrieval and Guiding Cases has been practiced for a long time in courts at all levels in China,it is necessary to discuss the criteria for judging similar cases with foundation of practice now.The key to the judgment criteria of objective similar cases lies in the collocation of judgment elements and the selection of retrieval incisions.The judgment criteria for similar cases of "significant facts + focus of controversy" take the legal relationship involved in the case as the underlying analysis clue,the significant facts as the basic element of similar case comparison,the focus of controversy as the starting point for discovering potential similar cases,and the search and comparison of similar cases are completed step by step,which better takes into account the comprehensiveness and operability.Moreover,this method of serving as the smallest search unit for the focus of controversy is not limited to similar cases,but will refine the results of similarity and comparison of cases to a greater extent,and achieve a deeper level of uniformity in the application of law.