The case has gone through three trials, and the original defendants all submitted evidence about the case. According to the principle of "who claims, who gives evidence" in the Civil Procedure Law, Xu Shoulan, as the plaintiff, should bear all the burden of proof for his claims, while the defendant Peng Yu does not need to prove his innocence.
Opinions of all parties
But throughout this case, the plaintiff has no strong direct evidence to prove that he was injured by Peng Yu. Different from the strict standard of evidence in criminal proceedings, the principle of dominant evidence is adopted in civil proceedings. Zhang Weiping, a professor at Tsinghua University Law School, believes that the case still needs evidence to find out the facts, and the controversy caused by the court's determination of the facts is related to the judge's failure to make full use of the evidence method of witness testimony. In the whole evidence system, Xu Shoulan has occupied the evidence advantage, and the judge can make a judgment against Peng Yu completely, without further explanation by reasoning.
"Who advocates who gives evidence" is not an absolute allocation rule of burden of proof. When the victim provides a series of indirect evidence to prove that the perpetrator has committed an infringement, the court has no choice but to use the principle of "presumption of evidence", which is a special protection measure for the victim. According to the rules of evidence, "when there are no specific provisions in the law and the burden of proof cannot be determined according to these provisions and other judicial interpretations, the people's court may determine the burden of proof according to the principles of fairness, honesty and credit, taking into account the parties' ability to provide evidence and other factors. "Then, if it is really difficult for the victim to prove the infringer's infringement in an instant, the court will rely on a series of examples cited by the plaintiff, such as" the defendant was at the scene ","accompanying the plaintiff to the hospital "and" giving money to the plaintiff's family for treatment ". In the case that the defendant can't prove that he didn't do harm, the court explained the process of evidence presumption in detail in the judgment, so it is appropriate to judge the defendant to bear part of the liability for compensation according to the principle of fairness.
In this case, apart from the distribution of the burden of proof, the one-sided reports of the media not only affected the public's judgment on the incident, but also caused great public pressure on the judicial fair trial. Legal facts are different from objective facts and news facts. In judicial practice, judges should always adhere to the principle of "taking facts as the basis and law as the criterion" in the face of media and public opinion judgments, instead of considering how to deal with the media and convince the public. In the first-instance judgment of "Peng Yu case", the judge made an analysis and inference based on the principles of "daily life experience" and "social common sense", but after being questioned by the media, the judge evaded the original correct litigation rules. After some reasoning analysis deviated from some people's cognitive path and caused public doubts, the judge's subsequent reasoning was affected.