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比较法视野下民事诉讼事实认定中经验法则的适用

The Application of the Rule of Thumb in Finding Facts in Civil Proceedings from the Perspective of Comparative Law

Progress in Social Sciences / 2024,6(3): 623-631 / 2024-06-04 556 306

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• Authors: 滕依淳     
• Information:

  上海政法学院，上海

• Keywords: Rule of thumb; Fact finding; Probability; Cognitive bias; Normalize 经验法则；事实认定；盖然性；认知偏差；规范化
• Abstract: China's high attention to the rule of thumb started from the "Peng Yu case" in Nanjing in 2006, whichnot only set off the moral trial and discussion of "helping and not helping" in the media, but also exposedthe chaos and disorder of the practice and application of the rule of thumb in the judicial circle. The rule ofthumb includes the general experience in the daily life of human society and the empirical knowledge in theprofessional field, reflecting the normal causal relationship between things. Because of its "experience" and"rule", the rule of experience should have both the facts and legal issues of dual attributes. In the process of findingthe facts in civil litigation, the rule of thumb also plays the functions of fact presumption, evidence evaluationand law and legal behavior interpretation. As for the rule of thumb, its extraterritorial application is earlier andmore mature than that in China. The apparent proof in German law, the "approximate presumption" in Japaneselaw and the "self-evident" principle in Anglo-American law all show that the rule of thumb plays an importantfunction in extraterritorial litigation fact finding. In the judicial practice of our country, there are two types ofrule of thumb: missing and wrong application, which is due to the probability and subjective disadvantages ofrule of thumb itself, and the cognitive bias caused by individual differences of judges. Of course, it also reflectsthe legislative deficiency related to rule of thumb in our country. Therefore, our country should fully explainthe selection and application of the rule of thumb in various judgment documents on the basis of the disclosureof the judge's heart evidence, initially explore the segmented trial mode, and build the rule of thumb appealrelief mechanism, in order to achieve the standardization of the application of the rule of thumb, promote thenormalization and effectiveness of the identification of facts, and realize the unity of the application of law. 我国对于经验法则的高度关注起始于2006发生在南京的“彭宇案”，该案不仅在媒体舆论上掀起了“扶与不扶”的道德审判与讨论，也在司法界则暴露出我国经验法则实践适用的混乱无序。经验法则包含了人类社会日常生活中的普遍经验以及专业领域内的经验知识，体现了事物之间的常态化因果联系。因其同时具有的“经验性”与“法则性”，经验法则应当兼具事实与法律问题的双重属性。在民事诉讼事实认定的过程中，经验法则还发挥着事实推定、证据评价，以及法律及法律行为解释功能。对于经验法则，其在域外的适用较之我国更早也更成熟，德国法上的表见证明、日本法上的“大致推定”以及英美法“不证自明”原则，均体现经验法则在域外诉讼事实认定中发挥着重要功能。我国司法实践中经验法则存在着适用缺失与适用错误两种类型，其源于经验法则自身的盖然性与主观性之弊，也源于法官个体差异而产生的认知偏差，当然，也体现我国经验法则相关的立法缺失。为此，我国应当在法官心证公开的基础之上在各类裁判文书中对经验法则之选取适用进行充分说理，初步探索分段式审理模式，并且建设经验法则上诉救济机制，以期实现经验法则适用之规范化，促进事实认定的规范性与有效性，实现法律适用之统一。
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.35534/pss.0603052
• Cite: 滕依淳．比较法视野下民事诉讼事实认定中经验法则的适用［J］．社会科学进展，2024，6（3）：623-631.