国际仲裁程序中律师与客户间通信证据的特权保护及我国的证据保护制度

Attorney-Client Privilege in International Arbitration and Evidence Protection Rules in China

尽管不同司法管辖区的实践各异,律师—当事人特权已经成为当今社会公认的一项法律制度,在保护特权证据在司法程序中不被披露起到关键性的作用。国际仲裁庭一般接受善意提出的法律特权主张,但实践中却没有严格适用的规则来指导仲裁庭对特权请求进行评估和裁决,这导致了实践中存在实质性的不可预测性和冲突。按照规则,仲裁庭可以适用任何其认为适合的法律和律师道德操守来评估主张的有效性。仲裁庭不仅要适用当事人合理预期内适用的法律,而且还要审查法律特权请求在仲裁规则、证据规则甚至国际法原则下的合法性。在裁决过程中也必须兼顾程序的公平和公正。我国目前的证据保护制度与世界水平还存在一定距离。尽管我国法律也保护律师与当事人关系中获悉的国家秘密、商业秘密和个人隐私,但还没有形成一种能够达到法律特权保护水平的制度在司法和仲裁程序中对抗取证权。我国证据保护的现状使中国当事人和律师在国际仲裁中处于不利地位。本文希望在介绍国际仲裁中法律特权规则和实践的同时,简要地介绍我国证据保护制度的现状和可能为我国企业和律师参加国际仲裁程序带来的影响,希望以此引起有关部门的注意,尽快完善我国的涉外证据保护制度,更好地为“一带一路”国际商事争端解决机制的建立与完善提供充分法律依据和保障,更好地服务国家全面开放和发展战略。

With practice varied across jurisdictions,attorney-client privilege is well-accepted to protect privileged evidence from being disclosed in judicial proceedings.International tribunals have shown that they generally defer to the claims of privilege asserted in good faith.However,there are no strict rules to guide the tribunals in practice,which leads to substantial unpredictability and conflict.In practice,international tribunals apply different rules considered applicable to the validity and effectiveness of the privilege claims.Claims of privilege must be examined under not only the laws the parties reasonably expect to govern the matter,but also the arbitration and evidentiary rules applicable or even the general principle of international law.Procedural fairness and equity of parties must also be weighed in the process of decision.China does not have the legal privilege protection regime keeping up with the world.Despite that China claims to protect the secrecy of business communicated in the relationship of attorney and client,there is yet a solid means to secure the protection of privileged evidence in judicial or arbitral proceedings that matches the rules of legal privilege.China’s current level of legal privilege protection can position its enterprises and attorneys unequally to their foreign counterparts in international arbitration.Whilst addressing the controversies and ambiguities existing in the rules and practice of legal privilege in the context of international arbitration,this article briefly examines China’s current evidence protection regime with aim to call upon the attention to its implications to China’s legitimate interests in international arbitration.