CHINA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Michael Ma, Dacheng Law Offices
Exploring Legal Issues Related to Fabrication of Evidence in Civil Litigation Introduction Since Amendment (IX) of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China (“Amendment (IX)”) introduced the crime of a “false lawsuit” in 2015, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme Peo - ple’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Secu - rity and the Ministry of Justice have been crack - ing down severely on false lawsuits, penalising a large number of litigants, lawyers, witnesses and other participants who have infringed the rights of others through false lawsuits. However, false lawsuits and malicious litigation continue to occur frequently, with cases involving significant amounts and becoming increasingly diverse, even permeating into the daily lives of ordinary people. A common occurrence is debt - ors using false lawsuits to evade paying debts; the Supreme People’s Court released a series of typical criminal cases involving false litigation to evade debts at the end of 2023, highlighting the typical methods of evading debts through false litigation in practice. Due to the professional expertise of legal ser - vices, lawyers possess a thorough understand - ing of legal provisions and civil litigation proce - dures. However, some lawyers have intentionally engaged in and facilitated false lawsuits by lev - eraging their legal expertise. In a typical case published by the Jiangsu High Court in 2022, lawyer Zhang colluded with the parties to fab - ricate a mortgage agreement, which led to an objection to enforcement and a flawed court judgment, resulting in the suspension of the frozen property. Ultimately, this lawyer was sen - tenced to one year and nine months in prison and fined CNY100,000.
In response to lawyers engaging in evidence for - gery and false litigation, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued the “Opinions on Further Strengthening the Punishment of False Litigation Crimes” (hereinafter referred to as the “Opinions on False Litigation”), emphasising the need to hold lawyers strictly accountable for false litiga - tion crimes in accordance with the law. In significant and complex family disputes, it has become common for one party to avoid the divi - sion of marital property by fabricating evidence. Common forms include: • forging unilateral gift contracts or wills to classify property received as gifts or inherited from parents as personal property; • falsifying company financial statements to devalue company equity; and • forging loan contracts to fabricate debts or to legitimise the transfer of funds to others. Legal analysis of the crime of false lawsuit committed by fabricating evidence and making false statements Article 307(1) of the Criminal Law stipulates: “Whoever brings a civil action by fabricated facts, disturbs judicial order or seriously infringes upon other persons’ legitimate rights and inter - ests, shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprison - ment of not more than 3 years, criminal deten - tion or public surveillance and shall also or only be fined; if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment from 3 to 7 years and shall be fined. “Where an entity commits the offence in the preceding paragraph, it shall be fined, and the person directly in charge and the other directly
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