On The Legal Issues Of Fulfillment Standards Of The Alimony Payment Obligation

The alimony payment obligation is the fundamental part of system of alimony obligations in China,and it is also the part that the law should give the most powerful adjustment.According to the general principle that law inherently contains clarity and generality,since a law establishes an obligation,it should fulfillment standards for this obligation.The Law on the Protection of the Rights and Interests of the Elderly and the Civil Code have established the alimony payment obligation,but for a long time,there hasn’t been set fulfillment standards for this obligation,seemingly believing that there is no need to set them;meanwhile,some local regulations set local fulfillment standards,and some fulfillment standards have been formed in relevant judicial practice,but these existing fulfillment standards fail to establish a unified order,and its intrinsic value ideas are inadequate.Therefore,setting fulfillment standards of the alimony payment obligations has become a legal issue worthy of researching and urgent to be resolved.It can be summarized as two successive issues,‘Why should fulfillment standards be set for the alimony payment obligations’ and ‘What fulfillment standards for the alimony payment obligation are reasonable’.‘Why should fulfillment standards be set for alimony payment obligation’ should be resolved by refuting the following two challenges,one is that it is unnecessary to set fulfillment standards based on the positioning of relevant laws as ‘declarative’,and the other is that it is not feasible to set fulfillment standards based on a king of cognition that family matters are difficult to make decisions from outside.The reasons for refutation are as follows: the positioning of ‘declarative’seriously weakens the unique function that the unique adjustment mechanism of the law should undertake,so it is wrong;the difficulty of making external decisions on family matters only means that it is difficult to establish formulaic standards,while developing relatively clear fulfillment standards to constrain the judge’s thinking is completely feasible.The refutation of these two doubts defended the necessity and feasibility of setting fulfillment standards,and ultimately resolved the issue of ‘Why should fulfillment standards be set for the alimony payment obligation’.To solve the issue of ‘What fulfillment standards for the alimony payment obligation are reasonable’,corresponding thinking should focus on the crux of existing fulfillment standards,find ways that can overcome them as the fundamental basis for improving existing standards,and further form specific suggestions.The crux of existing fulfillment standards lies in the aspect of value ideas,by drawing lessons from relevant systems and speculating on the theoretical level,a set of new adequate value ideas can be ultimately shaped,they are ‘reasonable gap’,‘relativism of support obligations’ and ‘correlational consideration of various support obligations’,which are used as the fundamental basis for improving the existing fulfillment standards.Based on them,specific suggestions can be further formed to improve the existing performance standards: at the legal level,based on the value ideas of ‘reasonable gap’,‘relativism of support obligations’ and ‘correlational consideration of various support obligations’,the general fulfillment standards,exemption fulfillment standards,and floating fulfillment standards can be formed;at the level of local regulations,they should implement the standards at the law level and further refine the‘reasonable gap’;at the judicial level,legal standards should be implemented actively by giving priority to mediation,adjudicating according to law and using discretion appropriately,interpreting the law sufficiently,and strengthening the release of typical cases.These solve the issue of ‘What fulfillment standards for alimony payment obligations are reasonable’.