Source of reprint: China Law Review WeChat public account on May 22, 2021

Recently, after the recommendation of the academic committee of the Law Press and the expert review of the editorial committee of the publishing house, 5 manuscripts have been funded by the Law Press (2020) Youth Law Academic Publishing Fund. Among them, the work "Research on Civil Judgment Techniques of the First Instance" by Professor Cao Zhixun of PKULS was successfully selected, which well demonstrated the solid and rigorous academic level and innovative development potential of our young teachers.

About the Author

Cao Zhixun is an assistant professor at Peking University Law School. He graduated from Peking University with a doctorate degree. His main research field is civil procedure law. His main achievements are: "Reflections on the Review of Litigation Subjects in Civil Case Filing Procedures" ("China Legal Science", No. 1, 2020), "Chinese Paths for the Verification of Document Authenticity", ("Chinese Journal of Law", No. 6, 2019), "The Reshaping of the Structure and Reasoning of Civil Judgments", ("China Legal Science", No. 4, 2015) and other 17 legal CSSCI journal papers and about 50 results published in Chinese and English at home and abroad. He presided over the research of the National Social Science Foundation Youth Project, completed China Postdoctoral Science Foundation Special Funding and General First-class Funding Projects, and won approximately thirty awards and scholarships, including the 8th Higher Education Scientific Research Outstanding Achievement Award (Humanities and Social Sciences) Youth Achievement Award of the Ministry of Education and the 6th Dong Biwu Youth Law Achievement Award Nomination Award of the Chinese Law Society.

Brief Introduction

Judgment technology is the core technology of judicial operation. It shows the process and results of judges trying cases, and its specific content reflects the degree of judicial protection of litigant rights. In the theoretical and practical levels of different jurisdictions, there are concepts, methods, systems and specific operations that are essentially subordinate to the adjudication technique. Aiming at the main problems of civil adjudication in our country, this book preliminarily constructs a technical theory of first-instance adjudication that is guided by Chinese issues and contrasted with German civil procedural law. This book first analyzes the basic theories of civil adjudication technology, and then focuses on the judgment structure and reasoning, the judgment error correction mechanism, the pre-decision effect of the adjudication, the reference effect of guiding cases, and the law application technology throughout the adjudication process. Furthermore, this book focuses on the judging techniques in the field of fact-finding, discussing the multiple dimensions of fact-finding, the method of proof of fact claims, and the different probative power of documentary evidence. Finally, it analyzes the application of the burden of proof when the truth of the fact is unknown.

Translated by Yin Ziyou

Edited by Yin Ziyou