Since China has not established a special administrative reconsideration system when the Provisional Regulations on Notarization was promulgated, the notary office or its judicial administrative organ at the same level or the judicial administrative organ at a higher level shall revoke the regulations if it finds that "the notarized documents that have been issued are improper or wrong". As the legislation in the early stage of the construction of rule of law in the new era in China in the 1980s, the above provisions of this Ordinance have distinct traces of the times. First of all, "relief" is mainly based on the "self-correction" function of notary organs and notaries, rather than external review and supervision; Secondly, the power to start the relief or "self-correction" function lies in the "discovery" of the notary office and the notary office rather than the application of the notary party. As for what is discovery, there are no clear and specific provisions on the ways and means of discovery in law; Thirdly, there is no further definition of "improper" and "wrong", and there is no corresponding consideration about whether all mistakes or improper should be revoked. However, in any case, notarial parties can revoke notarial certificates that directly affect their rights and are indeed improper or wrong. In other words, the notarized parties have the right to say "no" to the notarial certificate.
The Rules of Notarization Procedure of the Ministry of Justice greatly revised and refined the provisions of the Provisional Regulations on Notarization in the State Council. First of all, the status and role of notaries in the notarization relief procedure are clarified, and it is stipulated that they can request to revoke improper or wrong notarial certificates by appealing and applying for reconsideration. In the subsequent notarization practice, the appeal and reconsideration application of notaries (including interested parties) actually became the main ways and means for notaries to "discover". Secondly, the scope of "improper" and "wrong" notarial certificates is defined in detail, and different relief methods are stipulated for different "improper" and "wrong"; Thirdly, by stipulating the time limit and method requirements for handling notarization parties' appeals and reconsideration applications, notarization relief will be transformed from a simple administrative "self-correction" mechanism to more administrative supervision and restriction modes. Comparatively speaking, the Provisional Regulations on Notarization emphasizes the legitimate and correct exercise of administrative power, while the Rules on Notarization Procedure more embodies the relief of the rights of the parties [29].
As notarization has the functions of preventing, reducing disputes and ensuring legal security, notarization may be the formal requirement (condition) for its entry into force as far as the legal facts of notarization are concerned, and it may also become an important evidence for resolving disputes. The rights and obligations stated in the notarial certificate are certain and may not be changed without legal procedures. And a wrong and improper notarization may help to form an important but untrue and illegal legal relationship, and may also determine or solidify an untrue and illegal legal fact [30]. Improper or wrong notarial certificate has the same probative force and execution force before it is revoked, and the exercise of this probative force and execution force will inevitably affect or even damage notarial parties and related stakeholders. The practice of notarization in various countries has proved that notarization should have relief procedures, and notaries and notaries should bear the responsibility. The only difference is: under what circumstances, how do notaries and personnel bear the responsibility?
The notarization law has taken a surprising approach to this issue. Chapter V "Notarization Effect" of the Law Article 39 "If the parties or interested parties to the notarization matter think that the notarial certificate is wrong, they may submit a reexamination to the notarization institution that issued the notarial certificate. If the contents of the notarial certificate are illegal or inconsistent with the facts, the notary office shall revoke the notarial certificate and make an announcement, and the notarial certificate shall be invalid from the beginning; If there are other mistakes in the notarial certificate, the notary office shall correct them. " Article 40 of the same chapter: "If the parties or interested parties to a notarization dispute the contents of the notarization, they may bring a civil lawsuit to the people's court for the dispute." . The continuity between this law and the relief mechanism of the current notarization system is only reflected in the following aspects: the parties and interested parties of notarization matters can file a review with the notarization institution that issued the notarization certificate; Notary agencies can revoke or correct according to different "wrong" situations. In this provision, the administrative supervision function of "the judicial administrative organ at the same level and the judicial administrative organ at the next higher level" as the notary administrative organ quietly disappeared, and it was replaced by the "civil litigation" system arrangement that spanned the original appeal, administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation process. Legislators should make such a system setting based on two theoretical premises: First, under various constraints such as legal responsibilities and procedures, notarial institutions that issue notarial certificates will revoke or correct those notarial certificates that are wrong according to the application for review by the parties and interested parties; Secondly, it is fundamental to arrange civil litigation for disputes over the contents of notarial certificates. By ignoring or stripping the notarial certificate attached to the original legal facts, the people's court directly tries the civil disputes between the parties and the interested parties of notarization, and it becomes irrelevant whether the notarial certificate exists. Therefore, even if it deviates from the first theoretical assumption, that is, the notary office refuses to revoke or correct the wrong notarial certificate, it will not affect the overall function of the relief mechanism of notarization law.
This arrangement of the Notary Law is related to the transformation of China's notary legal system from Latin notary system to common law countries. This relief method excludes the administrative supervision of the competent judicial administrative organs, and at the same time reduces the public power significance of notary's notarization-notarization is no longer an administrative act that should be reviewed by administrative decisions and administrative reconsideration; The competent administrative organ, as a notarization institution that independently exercises its functions and assumes responsibilities, has no right to judge the notarization business (although this does not exclude the competent administrative organ from supervising and punishing the acts of notarization institutions and notaries in violation of the Notarization Law, such punishment certainly does not change the fact that relevant notaries exist). However, from another point of view, when the problem of whether the notarial certificate issued by the notary office is wrong becomes completely dispensable in the civil proceedings of the people's court hearing related cases, the "probative force" and "execution force" originally given by the law are in danger of disappearing: because the notarial certificate can neither prove anything nor determine anything in the civil proceedings, it is really "inconvenient and uneconomical" for the parties to apply for notarization. However, there are contradictions and problems between this institutional arrangement of notarization law and reality, even with the relevant provisions of the law itself. The first is the revocation or correction of the wrong notarial certificate. The extent to which a notary public can revoke or correct the notarial certificate issued by itself according to the relevant review request is actually an uncertain problem. Although procedures and responsibility constraints can produce some coercive pressure, the inefficiency of self-monitoring is the most obvious fact among all supervision methods [3 1]. After the reexamination request of the relevant person is rejected or not realized, according to the provisions of the Notary Law, the parties and interested parties of notarization will lose the possibility of requesting cancellation or correction of the wrong notarial certificate through other channels. In other words, they can only accept the fact that the notary office that issued the certificate refused to cancel or correct it, so that a notarial certificate that is related to their vital interests and does have errors can continue to exist "legally". Secondly, as far as the civil lawsuit brought by the people's court against the related person whose contents are controversial is concerned, although there may be no difference between the notarized civil dispute and the non-notarized civil dispute itself (this is limited to voluntary notarization), the notarization process will change the original legal facts more or less, even if it can only be in a formal sense. The probative force of notarial documents makes the original legal facts more reliable, and it may be easier to generate new transactions around legal facts. Therefore, if the validity of relevant notarial documents is not involved, the relevant civil litigation of the court may not be carried out smoothly. As far as legal notarization matters are concerned, Article 38 of the Notarization Law itself clearly stipulates: "If laws and administrative regulations stipulate that matters that have not been notarized have no legal effect, those provisions shall prevail." This provision actually confirms that notarization is an effective element of some specific legal acts (transactions), that is, notarization itself constitutes an integral part of the original legal act. If the notarization institution does not revoke or correct the wrong notarial certificate, which is also an effective element of the relevant legal facts, the people's court cannot carry out the so-called "controversial" civil litigation. On the one hand, the notarization law continues to determine the probative force and execution of notarial certificates, on the other hand, it tries to dispel this effect through the change of "notarization relief mode", and contradictions and confusion are naturally inevitable [32].
The legislative process of notarization law for more than ten years shows that law is not only a summary of current social relations, but also contains the influence of political, economic and cultural development environment and legal value orientation. The requirements and realization degree of different interests in different stages of legislation show that legislation is far more complicated than procedure. This should be regarded as a normal state of legislation: we are legislating for "people". The interweaving and balance of various interests is far from being solved by the so-called "legal rationalization process" [33]. Taking the reform of notarization system as a case, we can also see the interaction and function between China's overseas rule of law experience and China's concrete reality in the process of rule of law construction. The arrangement of the two systems appears in the same notarization law at the same time-this may be a new national characteristic or a new local resource.