Study on the Application of the Restrictive Admission in the Newly-Revised Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Evidence in Civil Procedures

Zheng Ni

Party School of Sichuan Committee C.P.C.

Yang Yang＊

Sichuan University

Abstract: The Supreme People’s Court classifies admission into two types—complete admission and restrictive admission—according to the degree and scope of admission. Article 7 of the newly-revised Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Evidence in Civil Procedures provides clear rules for restrictive admission, which is divided into partial admission and conditional admission. In judicial practice, it is relatively easier to identify partial admission. However, the determination of conditional admission entails further considerations regarding whether there is a legal nexus between the attached condition and the admitted fact. Therefore, this study argues that there is a lack of unified rules regarding the applicability of restrictive admission in practice. Starting from the examples from the Supreme People’s Court, this study analyzed the application of conditional admission in judicial practice, as well as the problems and causes in the application of restrictive admission in practice. This article also explores the route to perfecting the rules of restrictive admission from the perspectives of its definition, classification, the onus probandi (burden of proof) and supporting mechanisms.

Keywords: evidence in civil procedures, admission, discretion, determination of evidence

Statement of the Problem

In the past few years, the academia has continued the discussion about whether restrictive admission should be established in civil procedures. Whether a system should be explicitly stipulated in laws, regulations, and judicial interpretations is consequent on whether it addresses urgent practical problems in judicial practice. In China, one of the media that best reflects the urgent problems in judicial practice is the website “China Judgments Online.” Therefore, we searched for relevant judgments to obtain more objective data. As of December 30, 2021, we had retrieved 370 judgments in China Judgments Online; 49 by searching “restrictive admission”; 32 by searching “conditional admission”; 94 by searching “admission with conditions”; 195 by searching “partial admission.” Among them, most were civil disputes over contracts, and many cases entailed the court of the second instance or further. Clearly, the provision of restrictive admission have a wide application in judicial practices and should be stipulated in relevant clauses.

Restrictive admission is an important form of admission. Refining the rules of restrictive admission is conducive to promoting a more comprehensive system of rules of admission. Most parties and their attorneys, when stating or admitting a fact adverse to them, do not speak without reservation. Even when stating a fact adverse to themselves, they tend to relate this fact to other facts favorable to them. Namely, even when a party gives a relatively complete statement in formulating all the facts, adverse facts cannot be completely dissociated from favorable facts. Therefore, it is imperative to taxonomically classify them to specifically regulate this scenario to build a comprehensive system of rules on restrictive admission. Studying restrictive admission rules is helpful for judges’ determinations based on lawfully recognized evidence in specific trials. In judicial practices, the parties, and their agents often cannot fully prove the facts that they state and do not identify the facts of restrictive admission. The lack of clear judicial stipulation on the rules of admission may easily lead to an unfavorable judgment against the party or judicial injustices. Therefore, as a suggestive clause with no direct legal consequences, restrictive admission has great significance in judicial practice.

Definition of Concepts Relevant to the Rules of Admission

The rules of admission in civil procedures can be classified into complete admission and restrictive admission. Restrictive admission is a concept derived by virtue of extension of the concept of complete admission. In the broader sense, restrictive admission means adding a set of limitations to admission, while whether the facts given through restrictive admission can be established is determined by the judge.

The Concept of Complete Admission

Complete admission means a party admits the fact claimed by the adverse party in the procedure, also called unconditional admission, it produces the effect of exempting the adverse party from discharging the burden of proof . Article 3 of the Provisions clearly stipulates that admission entails “a party stating any fact adverse to itself, or explicitly expresses its admission of the fact during the procedures.” Scholars commonly summarize the definition of admission as “a statement of fact adverse to a party made by itself during the oral arguments or preparatory procedures in a lawsuit that is consistent with the allegations of the adverse party”(Zhang, 2017). Admission is the establishment of a fact that is averse to the party by itself, either through making a statement or through admitting to the adverse party’s statement.

Admission occurs during the lawsuit, and its forms include the presentation of oral arguments or briefs. Section 2 of Article 3 of the Provisions stipulates that “if a party explicitly admits any fact adverse to itself in the course of exchange of evidence, questioning, or investigation, or in briefs such as complaints, replies, and attorney’s statements, the provisions of the preceding paragraph shall apply.” However, beyond the litigation process, a party’s admission of a fact adverse to itself does not count as admission in Procedure Law. It can only serve as evidence materials for the judge in the determination of facts. However, the laws of China do not stipulate that admission has the effect of restricting the judges. Therefore, in judicial practice, admission during and beyond the procedure is an auxiliary tool for the judge can use to identify the facts of a case and basically produces a similar effect.

The Concept of Restrictive Admission

Restrictive admission is a conditional and incomplete admission, meaning a party has a set of attached restrictions when making an admission. Namely, it sets attached conditions or restrictions to the admitted fact with the intention of counteracting the legal validity of admission (Xi, 2004). According to Article 7 of the Provisions, restrictive admission entails that “when a party admits the fact adverse to them claimed by the other party with restrictions, or conditionally, the People’s Court shall determine whether this counts as admission in the specific case .” In other words, admission here is not complete and unconditional but restricted with certain conditions attached (Luo, 2002). In the situation of restrictive admission, the court takes into consideration the circumstances of the case to determine whether it constitutes admission and produces the effect of admission in accordance with the intentions of the party that admits. For example, A sues B and demands that B to pay back a loan of RMB100 thousand, but A has no evidence of lending money in cash in the first place. B states to the judge that he/she will admit the debt of RMB100 thousand to A only if A admits that B has already paid back RMB50 thousand. In this scenario, the statement of B constitutes restrictive admission. In judicial practice, to identify the facts in a case, the judge usually does not allow parties to make a restrictive admission, but in cases with inadequate evidence, the strategies of offense and counterplea of the parties should be respected to determine the effectiveness of restrictive admission not from the perspective of “what things should be” but from the perspective of “what things are.”

In judicial practice, the determination of restrictive admission is contingent on the effective and professional analysis of the judge after comprehensively accounting for the facts of the case, and concepts of similar categories need to be differentiated. With regards to a party’s admission and its attached condition, comprehensive judgment is essential to avoid simply and mechanically separating the admitted fact from its attached conditions. If the fact admitted by a party and the attached conditions belong to the same legal relationship, then in the determination of whether it constitutes admission, the two facts should be considered together. If the fact admitted by a party and its attached condition do not belong to the same legal relationship, i.e., they belong to two different legal relationships, then they can be determined separately. Thus, the admitted fact can be deemed an admission, while the attached condition can be identified as an additional independent claim of the party. So, restrictive admission and the defense of a party need to be differentiated in practice. In the procedure, counterplea is a means of protection from a claim, where a party asserts a fact that is different from the allegation claimed by the opposing party in order to exclude the fact claimed by the adverse party and to dismiss the adverse party’s claim. Therefore, when a party raises a counterplea, they shall bear the burden of proof for the counterplea raised. In conditional admission, if a party makes an independent attack or defense with another fact and this fact has no legal relationship with the fact alleged by the other party, then the party making an admission should bear the burden of proof for the attached condition. If a party makes an independent offense or defense with another fact and this fact has a legal relationship with the fact alleged by the opposing party, then, as attached condition is already part of the burden proof of the adverse party, the judge should comprehensively consider the circumstances of the case and distribute the burden of proof (Wang, 2003).

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Categorization of the Provisions of Restrictive Admission

In the previous version of the evidence in civil procedures, although no distinction is made between complete admission and restrictive admission, it is highly important to distinguish the two in judicial practice, especially in contract disputes where cases involving restrictive admission are very common. According to the interpretations of the Supreme People’s Court, restrictive admission can be classified into two types: partial admission and conditional admission.

Partial Admission

In a situation where one party admits a part of the fact claimed by the adverse party while not admitting the rest. It is easy to determine that the part of the fact admitted by the party constitutes admission, for which the adverse party bears no burden of proof. For example, the plaintiff claims that the defendant borrowed RMB100 thousand, but the defendant only admits a loan of RMB80 thousand. The loan of RMB80 thousand constitutes partial admission, for which the plaintiff bears no burden of proof, but the plaintiff still needs to produce evidence for the rest of the RMB20 thousand. In another example, in the case No. 2 [2018], Civil Petition, the People’s Court of Huaiyin Area, Huai’an, Jiangsu Province, the applicant for retrial (plantiff of the trial at first instance) Wu claims that the respondent (the defendant of the trial at first instance ) Sun borrowed a total of RMB18.2 thousand in two installments in 2013, out of which RMB2.5 thousand were paid in two installments, but the remaining RMB15.7 thousand have not been paid. The respondent did not sign a promissory note at that time, but both parties described the fact, and the exact amount of the loan in the subsequent WeChat chat record, and the respondent did not deny the above facts. In the court of first instance, the respondent admitted the fact of borrowing money but only admitted an amount of RMB14 thousand. The respondent also claimed that RMB10 thousand had been returned with RMB4 thousand remaining. Throughout, however, the respondent did not provide any evidence of repayment to support this claim. In this case, Sun’s statement constitutes partial admission. After investigations, the judge of the retrial asserted that “the applicant claims creditor’s rights of RMB18.2 thousand against the respondent but only provides WeChat chat history as proof. The amount of loan in the chat history was unilaterally stated by the applicant, and the respondent did not make any response, so this evidence cannot prove the applicant’s claim, nor does the applicant provide other relevant evidence to support the claim. Therefore, it is consistent with current laws and regulations that the judge of the trial at first instance did not approve this claim. The statement of repayment of RMB10 thousand with a debt of RMB4 thousand remaining by the respondent during the court of first instance constitutes conditional admission, and the precondition of this admission is that he/she only admits a debt of RMB14 thousand to the applicant, instead of RMB18.2 thousand claimed by the applicant because the applicant failed to discharge the burden of proof with regards to the loan of RMB18.2 thousand (Wu v. Sun, 2018).”

Conditional Admission

The attached condition can be separated from the admitted fact, i.e., the attached condition has no legal nexus with the admitted fact. It is an additional independent means of attack or defense when a party admits a fact alleged by the adverse party. In this situation, it should be determined that restrictive admission produces the legal consequence of admission. The independent claim added by the party making admissions does not affect the actual existence of the part of the fact in that admission, and the party bearing the burden of proof should provide further evidence in accordance with the principle of distribution of the burden of proof in civil procedures. For example, the plaintiff sues the defendant for borrowing RMB100 thousand. The defendant admits the fact of a loan of RMB100 thousand but claims that the loan of 100,000 RMB has already been repaid. This constitutes conditional admission, where the condition and the admitted fact can be separated. The admission of a loan of RMB100 thousand by the defendant constitutes complete admission. The claim that the loan of RMB100 thousand has already been repaid constitutes a new allegation of fact, an independent means of opposition or defense, and the defendant should provide evidence to prove its allegation of a new fact. In another example, in the case No. 2866 [2016], Civil Petition, the Higher People’s Court of Jiangsu Province, Wu claims that there were counterfeit banknotes of RMB900 in the wages distributed by Fangxing Company and sues Fangxing Company, requesting compensation for the loss of RMB900. In the court of first instance, Wu did not provide evidence for this fact. Fangxing Company made an admission that Wu had raised the problem of counterfeit banknotes, and the company had accepted the responsibility of compensation for RMB500. Based on the admission of Fangxing Company, the court of first instance determined the loss to be RMB500 without supporting the remaining RMB400. In this case, the fact that Fangxing Company accepted responsibility for Wu’s loss due to counterfeit banknotes constitutes the situation of conditional admission in restrictive admission. Namely, the legal representative stated that “Wu raised the problem of 9 counterfeit banknotes. I did not ask further and said that wherever the banknotes came from, I will compensate for half of them. I gave Wu RMB500.” In terms of whether the wages distributed by the company contained counterfeit banknotes, Fangxing Company claims that accepting responsibility for the loss due to counterfeit banknotes does not indicate that they admit the fact that the counterfeit banknotes came from the company in the first place. Rather, they agree that wherever the counterfeit banknotes came from, they will compensate for part of the loss. Therefore, the judge of the retrial determines after investigations that the admission of Fangxing Company does not constitute the admission of Fangxing Company being the origin of the counterfeit banknotes. Rather, it is a conditional admission, namely, the attached condition and the fact admitted are separate (Wu v. Kunshan Fangxing Technology LLC, 2016).

The attached condition cannot be separated from the admitted fact, i.e., the attached condition has a legal nexus with the admitted fact. When a party admits a fact alleged by the adverse party with certain conditions or limitations, on the ground of the inseparability of admission, the court should not quote out of context or separate the attached condition from the fact admitted to the point of making determinations adverse to the party that admitted. The court should take into consideration the whole picture and determine the fact based on the investigation of evidence and the overall circumstances of the oral arguments. For example, the plaintiff sues the defendant and demands the repayment of a loan. The defendant states that if the plaintiff can provide the original copy of the promissory note, he/she shall admit the fact of the loan. This constitutes conditional admission where the attached condition and the fact admitted cannot be separated. The People’s Court should determine whether it constitutes admission after comprehensively considering the circumstances of the case. For the defendant, there is a risk that it constitutes admission (Lv, 2006). In another example, in the case No. 556 [2015], Civil Petition, the Intermediate People’s Courts of Taizhou, Zhejiang Province, the appellant Pei voluntarily signed a promissory note to the appellee Xi and the two parties had no objection as to the determination of the court of first instance that this case entails private lending. It should be determined that the appellant admits a private lending relationship involving RMB100 thousand between his/her father and Xi and voluntarily undertakes this debt. Therefore, the appellant Pei should repay the principal and interest of the loan as agreed in the promissory note. As for the question of whether the fact holds that Zheng, the mother of Pei, had repaid RMB90 thousand to the respondent, the court determines that the RMB90 thousand was voluntarily admitted by the respondent in the procedures concerning the dispute over the private lending of RMB250 thousand, and that the admission was conditional. Namely, the respondent admitted having received repayment of RMB90 thousand but claimed that this RMB90 thousand was for the repayment of another loan. Therefore, the admission with a certain pre-condition stated by the respondent has the characteristic of inseparability. In other words, the conditional admission should be taken as one statement in its entirety. The conditional admission made by the respondent cannot be taken independently as the evidence to support the appellant’s claim (Pei v. Xi, 2015).

The Application of the Provisions of Restrictive Admission in Judicial Practice and Analysis of Related Problems

There are still some controversies and obstacles in the application of the rules of restrictive admission in practice. In particular, the determination of facts in a restrictive admission gives the judge considerable discretion. A different understanding of the nexus between the attached condition and the admitted fact in conditional admission may lead to problems regarding the burden of proof and may even affect the judgment of the entire case. Therefore, it is necessary to study the application of the rules of restrictive admission in practice. We have drawn on typical cases issued by the Supreme People’s Court in theInterpretation and Application of the Newly-Revised Provisions on Evidence in Civil Procedures(henceforth abbreviated asInterpretation and Application) as examples for elaboration and interpretation.

Analysis of Typical Cases of Restrictive Admission

The Supreme People’s Court provides the following example of a dispute over private lending relevant to restrictive admission inInterpretation and Application: A sues B and claims that he/she lent RMB100 thousand in cash to B without signing any written contract or issuing any written proof such as a promissory note, and that B has not repaid the money. B admits having borrowed RMB100 thousand in cash from A but claims that the amount has been repaid in cash. Since A did not ask B to sign a promissory note in lending, B did not request any receipt from A when repaying the money. The question is: can the court determine that B owes RMB100 thousand to A according to the rules of admission and, in the meantime, order B to bear the burden of proof and prove the repayment of the loan?

Opinions of the Supreme People’s Court relevant to treating the case.

B admits having borrowed RMB100 thousand in cash from A. According to the provisions of admission, it can be determined that there is a lending relationship between A and B. In the meantime, however, B admits the fact, although they could have denied the fact of the loan, which indicates that B’s claim that the repayment has been made in cash is highly plausible. Therefore, A must produce evidence that B has not yet made the repayment. This case is the Supreme People’s Court’s attempt to interpret in depth how to contend with the inseparability of the attached condition and the admission. Article 7 of the Provisions does not specify how to delineate the demarcation line between the two, nor doesInterpretation and Applicationexpound on that issue in detail. The latter only lists a few examples and gives simple interpretations. There is still much ambiguity about this issue both in theory and practice, which awaits scholars and other law professionals to further ameliorate.

Analysis of the application of the provisions of conditional admission.

Whether there is a legal nexus between the attached condition and the admitted fact in conditional admission is contingent on the existence of “objective nexus” rather than “subjective nexus.” With regards to the above case discussed by the Supreme People’s Court, in terms of the means of denial, A does not have any written proof of the payment of money, and B could have totally denied the fact of the loan. In this way, A still has to accept the legal consequences of the impossibility of proof, i.e., the risk of losing the case, but B voluntarily admits to the fact of the loan. Analyzed from the perspective of the rules of admission and the principle of high probability, the fact of the loan could be determined. In the meantime, B claims to have made repayment in cash. Under the superficial analysis of “the burden of proof rests on who asserts it,” B should bear the burden of proof to prove that the repayment has been made. However, given the two “basic facts” that A lent money to B in cash without requesting B to sign any written documents and B voluntarily admits the fact of the loan, a comprehensive analysis leads to the conclusion that B’s claim of the fact that the repayment has been made is highly probable, and subsequently, based on the rule of thumb, it can be presumed that B has made the repayment. In this scenario, the burden of proof still rests on the plaintiff A, and A is responsible for adducing evidence that B has not yet paid back the money. In this example, the loan in cash is an admission, and the repayment in cash is an attached condition. There is an objective nexus between the two. This objective nexus is only possible if the judge has sufficient conviction, i.e., it can only be ascertained when the plausibility that the admission and the attached condition mutually constitute the fact reaches the standard of a high degree of probability (Guo, 2012).

The Nexus Between the Attached Condition and the Admitted Fact in Conditional Admission

The nexus between the attached condition and the admitted fact should be an objective nexus. If the sentence “A sues B and demands repayment of RMB100 thousand from B with a promissory note” is added to the above case provided by the Supreme People’s Court, in this scenario, the court should directly resort to Section 1, Article 16 of theProvisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Private Lending Casesand place the burden of proof of having made the repayment on B. In this situation, B’s admission to the fact of the loan constitutes admission and can be directly ascertained according to the rules of admission. The attached condition of having paid back the money in cash that B claims in the meantime does not have a strong objective nexus with the admission. Namely, the loan in cash and repayment in cash fail to reach a high degree of plausibility of being reciprocally factual. After the existence of a promissory note was added, this lawsuit differs from the example provided by the Supreme People’s Court in terms of the determination of admission. In the model case provided by the Supreme People’s Court, A lends money to B in cash without written proof. Then, there is a high likelihood that B made a repayment in cash without retaining written proof (such as a receipt) under the condition of B’s admission of the loan, but in this latter case, A lends money to B with written proof. According to the rule of thumb, it is reasonable for B to reclaim the promissory note or request a receipt from A when paying back the money. Here, B, however, does not have any written proof for repayment. Then, B has to bear the burden of proof for having made the repayment. Although B claims orally that the repayment has been made, its real meaning is that “the pre-condition of admitting the loan is that the money has been paid back,” but due to the lack of objective nexus, the subjective nexus that B believes to exist between the attached condition and the admission cannot be ascertained.

“Proving the existence of a fact” is relatively easier than “proving the non-existence of a fact.” Therefore, in procedures on disputes over private lending, the burden of proof rests on the plaintiff to adduce evidence for two fundamental facts, which are consensus on loan and payment of money. The fundamental fact that “the defendant has not repaid the loan” amounts to “proving the non-existence of the fact.” Logically speaking, it is very difficult to directly prove the non-existence. Therefore, the burden of proof is placed on the defendant to produce evidence for “having repaid the loan,” which “extinguishes the cause of action” inCivil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China. In the model case provided by the Supreme People’s Court, objectively speaking, there are two possibilities: defendant B borrows money in cash without repayment, or B has made the repayment. In the first situation, both plaintiff A and defendant B have no substantial evidence. In the absence of evidence from both parties, it would be unfair to put the burden of proof on B for the fact that the money has been paid back. This is because the evidence is the basis of litigation. Both parties provide only unilateral statements, and A still cannot prove the fact that B did not pay back the money. Naturally, B does not bear the burden of proof for the fact of repayment. Both parties provided only oral evidence, which cannot be differentiated in terms of the strength of evidence. Therefore, it is reasonable to apply the rules of conditional admission and shift the burden of proof to A to adduce evidence that B has not paid back the money. Even if, based on the fact, B has not repaid the loan, based on the principle of legal truth, in the absence of any substantial evidence, A should bear the consequences of losing the case. As for the second scenario, where B borrowed the money in cash and has made the repayment in cash, A is subject to frivolous litigation, and there is no actual loss even if A loses the case according to the rules of evidence.

Problems and Their Causes in the Application of Provisions on Restrictive Admission in Practice

Through the analysis of cases, considering the rules of restrictive admission in the Provisions we can see that there are still many problems in the application of the rules of restrictive admission in judicial practice.

First, existing laws do not strictly delimit complete admission and restrictive admission, making it difficult to determine certain complicated cases or complicated facts in judicial practice. The currentCivil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of Chinaand the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Evidence in Civil Procedures do not clearly differentiate and define complete admission and restrictive admission, and scholars in the academia have not reached a consensus on the concepts in relation to the two types. Therefore, in judicial practice, judges have not yet developed a clear understanding of complete admission and restrictive admission, which could easily lead to the phenomenon of “different judgments for similar cases.” Second, there is no clear classification of restrictive admission, which makes it difficult to identify restrictive admission. Article 7 of the Provisions lists admission “with restrictions” or “with conditions,” juxtaposing two different types of restrictive admission. The First Civil Division of the Supreme People’s Court classifies restrictive admission into partial admission and conditional admission. Scholars have different perceptions about the connotation of the concept of restrictive admission. Some scholars argue that restrictive admission in the broader sense includes restrictive admission in the narrower sense and conditional admission. Others categorize restrictive admission into partial admission and conditional admission. Existing laws do not adequately demonstrate the differentiation and analysis of partial admission and conditional admission because the categorization of restrictive admission still needs to be perfected in practice. Third, there lacks a clear distribution of the burden of proof when a party makes a restrictive admission, which might affect the facts and results of the case involving restrictive admission. Although relevant laws and regulations stipulate that a party does not need to adduce evidence for the admission by the adverse party, different judges in different cases may determine differently in terms of how to determine the burden of proof for the partial admission or conditional admission in restrictive admission in judicial practice, which may lead to different results of a case. Fourth, there is a lack of a clear and comprehensive revocation procedures for restrictive admission. Article 9 of the Provisions regulates the revocation of admission, listing two circumstances where admission can be revoked, but the procedure for revoking admission is not specified. There is no clear regulation in terms of how the party applies for revocation, whether it requires an application in the written or oral form, or to what degree evidence must be given to prove that admission was made under duress or because of a major misunderstanding. The specific revocation procedure of restrictive admission needs to be further improved.

Explorations of the Routes for Improving the Rules Relevant to Restrictive Admission

Although the Provisions provides new regulations and supplements the content of the rules of restrictive admission, in judicial practice, there are still many problems in the determination of restrictive admission. Theoretical and methodical approaches to address these problems are an imminent need, and it is also imperative to improve rules relevant to restrictive admission.

Clarify Elements for Identifying Complete Admission and Restrictive Admission in Legal Terms

Currently, there is a lack of clear definitions for the subjects, objects, effectiveness, forms, and other elements related to the two types, which might affect the fair judgment of cases. Therefore, the interpretations of elements relevant to the determination of complete admission and restrictive admission need to be further improved. First, in terms of the subjects, the subjects of both complete admission and restrictive admission should be litigants, and only the litigants can make an admission of facts in a case. A litigant should be defined as the defendant, the plaintiff, a third person with independent responsibility, etc. Other participants in the litigation, such as witnesses, authenticator, expert assistants, etc., cannot be the subject of complete admission or restrictive admission because they do not bear the burden of proof. Second, in terms of the objects, for both complete admission and restrictive admission, the admissions by the litigants should be the essential facts directly related to the case, while those facts that are less relevant to the case or do not directly affect the case do not count as an object of admission. Third, the form of admission should be an admission during trial, which should occur during the stages of court investigation or oral arguments in court. If admission is in written form, it should be consistent with the facts stated in open court.

Establish a Unitary, Scientific, and Reasonable Criterion for Classifying Restrictive Admission

According to the identity of the litigants, restrictive admission can be classified into restrictive admission as a counterplea and restrictive admission as a denial. Restrictive admission as a counterplea, while admitting basic facts, asserts to extinguish a cause of action or exclude a cause of action to achieve the effect of eliminating the claim of the adverse party in the lawsuit at the same time. Restrictive admission as a denial asserts another legal relationship on the basis of admitting a basic fact claimed by the adverse party to achieve the effect of negating the claim of the adverse party in the lawsuit. In addition, the party making a restrictive admission as a defense should bear the burden of proof of that assertion, while the party claiming the existence of a valid and effective legal relationship should bear the burden of proof in restrictive admission as a denial. The party making a restrictive admission as a defense only bears the burden of adducing evidence and refuting the adverse party’s statements only after the adverse party has fully discharged the burden of proof.

Clarify the Rules of Distribution of the Burden of Proof in Restrictive Admission

According to the distribution of the burden of proof in theCivil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China, the party bearing the burden of proof takes the risk of losing the case, which could potentially lead to injustices due to gaps in the procedures. When partial admission occurs in a case, the adverse party should be exempt from the burden of adducing evidence for the partial fact. When conditional admission occurs in a case, if the conditions are met, the adverse party does not bear the burden of proving the admission; if the condition does not hold, then admission does not exist, and the adverse party still bears the full burden of proof. In distributing the burden of proof in practice, however, it is important to pay attention to correctly ascertaining restrictive admission. restrictive admission is separable. It should be recognized that the fact and the attached condition are both complete expressions of a party. They are therefore separable and could be treated separately. Considering them together is not conducive to determining the fact or distributing the burden of proof.

Improve the Supporting Procedures for the Reply and Revocation in Admission

In court, it is often the judge who controls the rhythm of the session and the situation of pleading. As a result, it is often the case that the parties are resistant to pleading and even enter surprise pleas during the trial. Therefore, some people take advantages of restrictive admission, in particular restrictive admission with conditions, and cause the adverse party to lower their guard. Not only is this practice detrimental to the interests of the plaintiff, but it could also easily lead to delays in litigation, as the plaintiff experiences a delay in knowing the adverse party’s claim and cannot effectively counter and debate in court, thus requiring more time to compensate for the lack of preparation in court, which also violates the principle of procedural fairness. In addition, the revocation procedure of restrictive admission is also important as it affects the legitimate interests of both parties. Currently, there should be more specific regulations about the revocation procedure of restrictive admission so that the parties are aware of what means and steps to take to withdraw an admission made under duress or because of a major misunderstanding. This will also enable the court to have rules to follow in the procedures and to better deal with problems related to the revocation of restrictive admission.

Content related to restrictive admission has been added to the Provisions to make the system of rules of admission more comprehensive and standardized. We draw on the Provisions to clarify restrictive admission and investigate the application of the rules of restrictive admission in judicial practice. First, restrictive admission belongs to admission. In contrast, to complete admission, it consists of partial admission or conditional admission. It can also be classified into restrictive admission as a defense and restrictive admission as a denial. Second, in the practice of determining restrictive admission, the primary task is to delimit and clarify the types of restrictive admission. Restrictive admission can be classified into partial admission or conditional admission. Whereas it is easier to identify partial admission, the determination of conditional admission needs to be made regarding whether there is a legal nexus between the attached condition and the admitted fact. Third, the admission with conditions by a party should not be identified separately in a simplistically and rigidly way. Rather, the attached condition and the admitted fact need to be considered comprehensively, and there should be a legal and objective nexus between the attached condition and the admitted fact. Fourth, there are many problems in the application of restrictive admission in judicial practice. Therefore, it is imperative to clearly define complete admission and restrictive admission in terms of elements, construct a scientific and unitary classification of restrictive admission, rigorously establish the rules for distributing the burden of proof between the parties of restrictive admission of different types, and improve the supporting procedures of reply and revocation of restrictive admission.