我国民事诉讼中“严重违反法定程序”的识别与界定——基于1000份裁判文书的文本分析

司法实例统计表明,我国民事司法实务中"严重违反法定程序"的识别与认定存在混乱与无序,突出表现在法院界定"严重违反法定程序"的"非法定情形"时未遵循科学统一的识别标准,导致裁量权的滥用。作为例示规范的《民事诉讼法》第170条第1款第4项的失范是根本缘由,其择取的程序违法列举情形仅凸显违法程度的"严重性",未体现出发回重审程序违法应满足侵害当事人审级利益与存在续行言词辩论必要的特质,"严重违反法定程序"的概括事项也未因应发回重审程序违法事由的基本要义。为求得程序正当与程序安定的衡平,应当以程序规范的不同效力等级作为识别"严重违反法定程序"的标尺;仅当诉讼行为违背强行规范时,方可界定为"严重违反法定程序"。

Identification and Definition of"Serious Violation of Legal Procedures"in China’s Civil Litigation--Text Analysis Based on 1000 Judgement Documents

The statistics of judicial cases show that there is confusion and disorder in the identification and determination of"serious violation of legal procedures"in China’s civil judicial practice,especially when the court defines the"illegal situation"of"serious violation of legal procedures",it does not follow the scientific and unified identification standard,which leads to the abuse of discretion.The fundamental reason for the anomie of Paragraph 4 of Article 170 of the Civil Procedure Law is that it only highlights the"seriousness"of the degree of violation of the law and does not show that the Retrial procedure violation should satisfy the characteristics of infringing the interests of the parties in the trial levels and the existence of necessity of oral debate.The general items of"serious violation of statutory procedure"also fail to refine the foregoing characteristics of the illegal cause of retrial procedure.In order to achieve the balance between due process and stability of procedure,the different levels of effectiveness of procedural norms should be used as the criterion for identifying"serious violation of legal procedures".Only when a lawsuit breaches compulsory norms can it be defined as"serious violation of legal procedures".