Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com November 29 news, secretly recorded other people's Wechat chat records of the formation of litigation evidence, can the court accept? How to strike a balance between the protection of the right to obtain evidence in litigation and the privacy of the person to be testified? The official Wechat account of the Beijing Internet Court gave the answer in an article today.

Recently, the Beijing Internet Court concluded a reputation dispute between Xiao Lin (pseudonym) and Xiao Liu (pseudonym), according to a Pixabay article. In this case, the plaintiff Xiao Lin thought that Xiao Liu and other three defendants had insulted and slandered him in the WeChat group, so he sued to the court for finding that the three defendants infringed his reputation. The three defendants believe that the chat record obtained by the plaintiff is the evidence secretly recorded without permission, and that the process of obtaining evidence infringes upon the privacy of the defendant Xiao Liu and does not have legitimacy. The court ruled that the plaintiff seriously infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of others in the process of obtaining evidence involved in the case, so the evidence could not be used as a basis for determining the facts of the case, so the plaintiff's claim was rejected. After the verdict was pronounced, neither side appealed, and the verdict has come into force.

The plaintiff, Xiao Lin, claimed that he was a senior manager of a company, and the three defendants, such as Xiao Liu, were originally employees of the company. Since 2021, the three defendants have been publishing a large number of insulting words frequently, continuously and for a long time through the WeChat group of "material reference discussion group" to maliciously slander, slander and abuse the plaintiff. The three defendants openly issued and spread the above insulting words in the employee working group, deliberately belittling and vilifying the plaintiff's personality, causing the company employees to have a negative understanding of the plaintiff and reducing the plaintiff's social evaluation. as a result, the plaintiff's reputation was seriously damaged and his spirit was extremely painful, so he sued to the court and requested the three defendants to immediately stop the infringement, apologize to the plaintiff in writing, eliminate the influence and restore his reputation. And compensate 10000 yuan in compensation for mental damage and 35000 yuan in legal fees.

The three defendants, including Xiao Liu, argued that the evidence submitted by the plaintiff was a screenshot of the offline Wechat interface, and that the plaintiff checked the defendant's private Wechat chat records offline on the company computer without permission, thus infringing upon the privacy of the defendant Xiao Liu. The evidence is illegitimate. The chat group listed by the plaintiff is not a working group, but a private complaint group created by the three defendants, which does not openly abuse the plaintiff, but only makes fun of the plaintiff in private. The chat content is mostly about complaints about the company system and management style, as well as topics related to the lives of the members of the group. A total of five members of the group, in addition to the three defendants, there are two better personal colleagues who were invited to join the group, which were not publicly disseminated to an unspecified majority and did not have the negative impact claimed by the plaintiff.

The court found out after hearing that the plaintiff Xiao Lin and Xiao Liu and other three defendants were originally colleagues of superior and subordinate levels. Through the video recording function of the defendant Xiao Liu's computer, the plaintiff obtained evidence that during February 2021, the three defendants insulted and slandered the plaintiff by chatting in the WeChat group involved through the company's computer. With regard to the specific process of obtaining evidence, the defendant Xiao Liu's computer was originally equipped with the office computer of the company and was used by Xiao Liu before he left office. On May some day in 2021, the company terminated labor relations with the defendant Xiao Liu. The plaintiff Xiao Lin took back the computer placed on Xiao Liu's work desk after sending a notice to the defendant Xiao Liu through Wechat. The defendant Xiao Liu withdrew from the computer Wechat through remote operation because he was unable to enter the company. When the plaintiff Xiao Lin received the computer, the computer was not turned off, so he flipped through Xiao Liu's Wechat historical chat records through offline status, and obtained evidence on the chat records of the defendant Xiao Liu and others during the February period. The plaintiff obtained evidence and found that Xiao Liu and two other defendants set up a WeChat group "* material reference discussion group" from February 2 to 22, 2021, using "the boss is incompetent", "double-dealing" and other obscene words to insult and slander the plaintiff.

The court held that although office computers are used for work purposes, Wechat, as a commonly used instant messaging software, the chat records are not necessarily all work content, and may also contain private life chat records that users do not want to know for others, that is, private information. The defendant Xiao Liu withdrew from Wechat by mobile phone when the plaintiff Xiao Lin was collecting evidence, making it clear that he did not want others to know the Wechat chat transcript. In the process of obtaining evidence for the plaintiff, knowing that there may be private information in the Wechat chat records, the act of flipping through the defendant Xiao Liu's personal Wechat account without permission constitutes an infringement on the legitimate rights and interests of others.

In this case, although he learned that the Wechat chat record involved in the case was the prerequisite to prove the existence of infringing remarks, and the plaintiff Kobayashi almost lacked other more moderate means of obtaining evidence through illegal means involved in the case, but from the evidence collection process of the plaintiff Kobayashi, he was not explicitly forced to carry out the above acts for the purpose of obtaining evidence and the situation, nor accidentally learned the content of the Wechat chat involved in the case, but in the case of knowing that it might infringe upon other people's privacy. Through looking through other people's Wechat chat records so as to learn the content involved in the case, infringement first and evidence later. From the perspective of interest balance, although there are conflict-protected interests in this case, the plaintiff Kobayashi needs to comply with the principle of proportionality when relieving his rights and obtaining evidence. Judging from the current situation of the measurement of interests, the plaintiff Kobayashi wants to investigate the responsibility that others may infringe their reputation rights during private group chat by infringing upon other people's right of privacy, which exceeds the necessity of safeguarding their rights, if the evidence is not excluded, it is tantamount to admitting and encouraging this kind of intentional infringement of other people's right to privacy, which is not conducive to the maintenance of legal order. Therefore, the evidence can not be used as the basis for determining the facts of the case, and the plaintiff Kobayashi failed to fulfill the burden of proof corresponding to the facts, so the court ruled to reject the plaintiff's claim.

Yan Jun, judge of the Beijing Internet Court, said that with regard to the exclusion of illegal evidence in civil proceedings, Article 106 of the interpretation of the Supreme people's Court on Application stipulates that evidence formed or obtained by means of seriously infringing upon the legitimate rights and interests of others, violating the prohibitive provisions of the law, or seriously violating public order and good customs shall not be used as a basis for determining the facts of the case. This provision provides for three situations to be excluded as illegal evidence, among which "serious infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of others" puts forward conditions to infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of others to a serious extent, reflecting the factors of interest measurement, including the measurement of the interests damaged by the illegality of the method of obtaining evidence and the interests protected by litigation.

How to judge whether the infringement of the legitimate rights and interests of others is "serious" needs to be analyzed in the light of the specific circumstances of the case. On the one hand, it is necessary to examine the interests damaged by illegal forensics; on the other hand, it is necessary to examine the benefits of relief in litigation forensics. a comprehensive evaluation is made around the subjective intention of obtaining evidence, specific means, the degree of necessity of taking illegal means to obtain evidence, and whether there is an alternative to moderate means of obtaining evidence.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.