The Chinese civil procedural law prescribes in general that starting from the time when a plaintiff finds or should find that his lawful right may be damaged, he should resort to the court for protections within 2 years thereafter; should there be whatever reasons that may result in the plaintiff not to resort to the court within the 2 years, he should at least demand such right within the 2 years by writing demanding letters and the likes to the party that has damaged his right, without doing so, the plaintiff shall lose his right to ultimately win the case, even though he still has his right to file the case with the court.
In additions, should the plaintiff be able to maintain valid the 2-year-long winning-case right(i.e. Statue of limitation) by continuing to issue demanding letters to the damaging party within or every two years since the plaintiff know or should know that his lawful right may be damaged, the right to win the case statue of limitation could validly last up to 20 years long at maximum, as prescribed by the Chinese civil procedural law. At expirations of the 20-year-long-at-maximum statute of limitation, the plaintiff shall lose his right to win his case.
The general 20-year-long-at-maximum statute of limitation, however, is not necessarily applied to all the Chinese civil litigation cases, as a concerning case was freshly reported by the Chinese People's Court Daily on 13th of December 2007.
According to the authoritative Chinese courts newspaper, about 21 years ago, two pregnant Chinese mothers who had not known each other delivered new-born boys almost the same time in the same hospital in Tong Zhou district of Beijing City; 21 years later, however, the two boys who have grown up in the two different families occasionally found they are natural twins, and the mistake apparently resulted from the said hospital. Therefore, all members of the two families have recently filed torts case with the Tong Zhou district court where the hospital has been existing. After hearing and trying the case, the court issued judgment on 12th of December 2007, indicating that the hospital has apparently made mistakes in the incident, and has surely brought spiritual damages to the two families to certain extents, under such circumstances, the court orders the hospital make apologies in writing to all the plaintiffs and also give compensations as spiritual relieves to all the plaintiffs of RMB410,000, RMB450,000, RMB100,000 and RMB50,000 respectively, totaling RMB1,010,000.
Regarding the legal issue of why the court can still issue favorable judgment to the plaintiffs in this case, as the 20-year-long-at-maximum statue of limitation has apparently expired, which has also been repeatedly asked and questioned by the hospital defendant during the trial, the court points out that (1)the 20-year-long-at-maximum statute of limitation may be extended, and also (2)the purpose of making the law provision in the regard is to encourage and to supervise the parties concerned to timely demand and to perform their rights in order to maintain social relationship stabilities. In this particular case, the plaintiffs have just found after 21 years that their rights are damaged, and also the personal identification right originating from the families connections is apparently and undoubtedly important to every citizen, therefore, the court objects to the hospital defendant's argument in the regard, besides, the defendant has no legal grounds not to bear obligations and liabilities simply by citations of the 20-year-long-at-maximum statute of limitation.
(Note: Personally speaking, I may not agree with the court in terms of law and for its correct applications, especially for the fact the court has not pointed out in details what law and judicial interpretations they have applied to this exceptional case to legally support their opinions on the statute of limitation, even though I may have to agree that it seems the judgment may widely be acceptable by and popular with the ordinary Chinese people)
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