Notice of the Supreme People's Court on the Relevant Work of Handling Cases involving Marital Debt Disputes

· Document Number：No. 71 [2018] of the Supreme People's Court

· Area of Law： Marriage,Family Support,Adoption,and Inheritance

· Level of Authority： Documents of Judicial Interpretation Nature

· Date issued：02-07-2018

· Effective Date：02-07-2018

· Status： Effective

· Issuing Authority： Supreme People's Court

Notice of the Supreme People's Court on the Relevant Work of Handling Cases involving Marital Debt Disputes
(No. 71 [2018] of the Supreme People's Court)
The Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on Issues concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases involving Marital Debt Disputes (hereinafter referred to as the “Interpretation”) has come into force on January 18, 2018. For the purpose of equally protecting the lawful rights and interests of all parties according to the law, the relevant work is hereby notified as follows:
I. The Interpretation shall apply to cases of first instance and second instance being tried.
II. For cases for which final judgments have been rendered, in the screening, the standards for unclear fact-finding, erroneous application of law, and obviously unjust results shall be strictly grasped. For example, in such cases where one spouse maliciously colludes with the creditor to entrap the other spouse and the other spouse has to bear a huge amount of debt for no reason without knowing it, corrections shall be made according to the law. In the citation of legal provisions when new judgments are rendered for retrial cases, Articles 17 and 41 of the Marriage Law and other laws shall be cited more.
III. For cases for which final judgments have been made that satisfy conditions for rendering new judgments, more efforts shall be made to mediation and such cases shall, to the greatest extent, be handled in the stage of retrial review or retrial mediation. Where a new judgment must be rendered for a case, the work of the parties' acceptance of the judgment and the judgment's entry into force shall be effectively conducted.
IV. For cases for which final judgments have been rendered that satisfy the aforesaid conditions for rendering new judgments, the enforcement department may also resolve the problem of safeguarding the rights and interests of one spouse with severe interest damage by means of enforcement reconciliation to the greatest extent.

Supreme People's Court
February 7, 2018