중국 민사소송에서의 증거법의 발전과 증명책임

The Law of Evidence is the most prominent part in the development of Chinese Civil Procedure Law and System. Scholars has been concentrated their efforts upon the research of this field and exerted themselves to reform the evidence handling system in Civil Procedure since the early 1990s. The fundamental cause of this fervent trend has a great deal to do with their aspiration to transform their socialistic civil procedure system which was deeply influenced by the legal system of the former-Soviet Union into a more Westernized one based on the market economy. In recognition of the impossibility of the drastic and overall revision of their Civil Procedure Law itself because of their socialistic political system, they made an attempt to circumvent the barrier by modifying the way of evidence-related procedure which inevitably will give rise to profound impacts on the whole civil procedure system. Experiencing the tremendous increase of cases due to the deepening of the market-oriented “Reform and Open Policy” of China, the court responded this roundabout method of change which can meet their urgent need for a more efficient procedure without making unnecessary frictions with the political authority. In 1998, the Supreme People s Court of China promulgated “Rules of the Supreme People s Court on the Reform of the Methods of Civil Economic Adjudication” to transform their trial method from the existing courtdomineering one to a method which allows parties to perform more active roles. In 2001, the Supreme People s Court added another very important Rule, i.e., “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Certain Issues Concerning Evidence in Civil Actions” to support and reinforce the reformation. After these two epoch-making resolutions, the courts began to show their willingness to permit parties to perform more active roles and also began to charge parties with responsibilities for their conducts in return. This cautious, somewhat deliberately calculated attempt, so far, could be appraised as successful one. But further intensive steps must be followed to meet the anticipation of the scholars and the courts of China.