民事訴訟上法官之闡明義務範圍

Abstract

法官之闡明義務對象、範圍涉及民事訴訟上法院與當事人間任務分擔之問題，而為民事訴訟法上必須探討之議題。我國民事訴訟法於西元1999年、2000年及2003年進行全面性修正後（下稱「新法」），已呈現出不同於過去單純繼受德國及日本民事訴訟法之獨特樣貌。我國新法係以「保障當事人之程序主體地位」作為立法根據及藉以充實各原理原則，並致力於包含「發現真實的突襲」、「法律適用的突襲」，以及「促進訴訟的突襲」等「突襲性裁判之防止」，即盡可能賦予當事人有機會得自行衡量以平衡兼顧其實體利益及程序利益，而更「健全化處分權主義及辯論主義」，並達到「集中審理」的目標。為此，乃加重法官之闡明義務而擴大其範圍。 本文共計五章，第一章緒論係說明研究動機及提出問題。接著，於第二、三章先觀察德國法及日本法上法官闡明義務之範圍，作為第四章我國法上法官闡明義務範圍解釋時之參考素材，並進而比較我國法與德、日法之不同，以考察我國法有何獨特於德、日法之處。 第二章介紹德國法上闡明義務規定之演變，並由此演變過程觀察並整理各領域中闡明義務之類型及範圍，同時探究闡明義務與各審理原則（即處分權主義、辯論主義、法官知法、自由心證、當事人自己責任，以及法官中立性）間之關係。雖然德國法已不斷擴大其法官闡明義務之範圍，例如，由僅承認「法觀點」之闡明，到不限於法觀點之「特定觀點」的闡明義務。但是，若與我國法相較仍有些差距。此外，在我國法另有異於德國法之規範下，德國法之解釋論未必能原樣引用於我國法上。 第三章介紹日本法上闡明制度之沿革。由於日本法係採取「闡明權」而非我國及德國所採取之「闡明義務」規定，故其關於闡明義務之發展係由實務判例所建立。相較於德國法，日本法上法官闡明義務範圍則狹小許多，且係集中於所謂「法觀點指摘義務」上。另外，近年來日本法亦強調集中審理，故亦有提倡法院與當事人間之資訊應相互流通，以利當事人充分為聲明及事證之主張。 第四章係本文重點所在。立於前兩章比較法之觀察上，展開我國法上闡明義務對象、範圍之解釋。從我國相較於概念源起之德國更為細緻之「突襲性裁判」概念及類型談起，再分別對於處分權主義領域、辯論主義領域、表明法律見解及公開心證領域之闡明義務進行解釋論上探討，並對於我國實務裁判進行整理及分析，以明確化我國法上有關闡明義務規定之對象、範圍。最終，並確認我國法官闡明義務之範圍較德、日為廣，且此等差異主要係來自於我國法尚注重當事人「程序利益」之兼顧、保障。 第五章結論，就我國法與德、日法相異之處作一總結性比較，由此可明確看出我國所獨有之程序利益保護理論如何影響法官闡明義務之應有範圍，以及處分權主義及辯論主義等審理原則之如何健全運用。最後，由於本文僅探討民事訴訟程序中法官闡明義務範圍，故尚遺留諸如：「失權效與闡明義務之關連」、「訴訟程序與家事事件程序及非訟事件程序中闡明義務之異同」等議題尚待研究。

The scope of the court’s elucidative duty is related to the issue of the task distribution in civil procedure between the parties and the court which is a topic that needs to be thoroughly discussed. Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law, which was influenced by German Law and Japanese Law, has shown a unique appearance after three times amendments in 1999, 2000, and 2003 (Hereinafter referred to as the “new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law”). The new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law is legislated on the concept of protection of the parties’ procedural subject and also made efforts in preventing the “surprising judgment” including the surprise in finding the fact, applying the law, and promoting the procedure. In other words, the new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law provides the parties the chances to balance their substantive interests and procedural interests on their own as many as possible so as to make the disposition principle and adversary doctrine more sound and concentrated the trial. Thus, it strengthens the court’s elucidative duty and broadens its scope. This thesis has five chapters. The first chapter is to clarify the motivation of the study and bring up questions. Chapter 2 and 3 is to make an observation over German Law and Japanese Law with regard to the scope of the court’s elucidative duty respectively so that it could serve as the reference resources while interpret the scope of the court’s elucidative duty of the new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law in chapter 4. Then, chapter 4 will also compare the differences between the new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law and German’s and Japanese’s in order to distinguish the uniqueness of the new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law from German’s and Japanese’s. Chapter 2 is to introduce the evolution of the court’s elucidative duty in German Law and make an induction of its types and the scope. Meanwhile, to study the relationships between the court’s elucidative duty and every principle in trail such as principle of disposition, adversary doctrine, iura novit curia, free evaluation, party autonomy principle, and neutrality of the judge. Although the German Law has been broaden the scope of the court’s elucidative duty such as acknowledge the duty from the legal aspect to certain aspect. However, compared to the new Taiwanese Civil Procedure Law, there still has difference in the scope of the court’s elucidative duty. Besides, since Taiwanese Law has different regulations to the German’s, we should be aware that the interpretation of German Law may not directly be used in Taiwanese Law. Chapter 3 is to introduce the evolution of the court’s elucidative duty in Japanese. It is the right, not a duty, of the court to elucidate in Japanese Law. Therefore, the evolution of the court’s elucidative duty has been build up through the case law. In contraction with German Law, the scope of the court’s elucidative duty in Japan might be narrower and centrals in the elucidative duty of legal aspects. Besides, Japanese Law has been emphasizing the concentrated trail. And there is advocacy that the court and the parties should exchange information frequently so that the parties can make their claims more sufficient and sound. Chapter 4 is the main chapter in this thesis and is to interpret the scope of the court’s elucidative duty of Taiwanese Law. It will start from the concept and types of the “surprising judgment” which Taiwanese Law is more detailed than its origin, German Law. Then, it will study the interpretation of the court’s elucidative duty in the area of disposition principle, adversary doctrine, and legal aspects and free evaluation. Also, there will be an analysis on the verdicts in Taiwan so as to clarify the scope of the court’s elucidative duty of Taiwanese Law. Finally, this thesis will show that the scope of Taiwanese court’s elucidative duty is broader than the one of German and Japan and this difference should be a result that we even emphasize in the balance or protection of the parties’ “procedural interests”. The last chapter is to make a conclusive comparison between the differences in Taiwanese Law and the one of German and Japan. By doing so, we can clearly see how the theory of protecting procedural interests have its impact on the scope of the court’s elucidative duty and the exercise of disposition principle and adversary doctrine. Finally, since this thesis only discusses the scope of the court’s elucidative duty in civil procedure, there are still some topics need for discussion such as the differences between the scope of the court’s elucidative duty in civil procedure and that in family procedure and non-litigation procedure.