In Chinese litigation procedure law, documented evidence, also referred to as documentation, is any fact that can be manifested and entered into the litigation process as proof. The evidence used by courts and prosecutors can be physical evidence, documents, testimony, parties’ statements, expert opinions, and investigation records. However, only evidence deemed relevant to a case after review may be admitted.

A key Chinese litigation procedure doctrine is evidence is produced during the course of the legal process. The legal process is the one where prosecutors and the judiciary resolve cases. Documented evidence is produced during the legal process; materials such as texts not produced during through the legal process.

Comparative Law

Chinese jurisprudence explicitly rejects the notion of Western jurisprudence that materials produced during legal proceedings are “documents” and are referred to as such when entered into evidence. This rejection extends to Taiwanese law, which, unlike China, is closely based on German civil law and refers to “documents” in litigation in the narrow sense of documentation.

Documents in Western and Taiwanese legal systems are produced through physical activity, implying a fundamentally different character from what is known in China as documented evidence. What would be considered to be produced documents in the Western and Taiwanese legal systems is deemed documented evidence in China.

That is to say, in China, documented evidence is a separate thing in itself produced through the legal process. The underlying evidence is the subject of an investigation, and the documented evidence is a documentary representation of the evidence. Chinese jurists consider this to be a central distinguishing feature of the concept of documented evidence.