The judge of Ningxiang Court was on the live broadcast. Live screenshot

"The leaders asked me to make some noise in Tiaoyin and carry out the live broadcast of the return of betrothal gifts." A witty live broadcast preview opened a recent live broadcast of the "return of betrothal gifts" on the official Tiaoyin account of the Hunan Higher People's Court (hereinafter referred to as "Hunan High Court").

The popularity of 2.74 million people (times) has pushed the live broadcast to hot search. The executive bureau of the People's Court of Ningxiang City, Hunan Province (hereinafter referred to as "Ningxiang Court") is responsible for the centralized implementation of the case of returning betrothal gifts. During the live broadcast, Wang Wei, the deputy director of the Executive Bureau of Ningxiang Court, turned into an anchor and explained in detail the picture of centralized implementation of the return of betrothal gifts, and answered online questions from netizens in real time. The five cases in this live broadcast are all the enforcement cases involving betrothal gifts disputes recently handled by the Ningxiang Court.

"Marry after meeting twice", "treat marriage as a child's play", "200000 yuan gift, 50000 yuan jewelry, 20000 yuan famous brand bag"... In the case broadcast on the same day, Ningxiang woman Wang refused to return more than 250000 yuan of betrothal gifts and was detained by the judiciary, causing heated public opinion.

The relevant person in charge of the Ningxiang Court said that the case was selected for live broadcast because of the typicality of the case. She said that the display of centralized implementation of cases involving bride price disputes in the form of live broadcast was to implement the requirements of the Supreme People's Court on curbing high-value bride price in accordance with the law, carry out targeted publicity on law popularization, advocate healthy, thrifty and civilized marriage, and curb the occurrence of high-value bride price.

　　 A woman refused to return the bride price and was detained by the judiciary

At about 9:00 on May 8, the centralized execution team arrived at the house of Wang. Accompanied by the applicant and Wang's ex husband Che, he flew from Shanghai to Changsha. At the execution site, he was very excited and expressed his anger to the media.

"She said that she doesn't like flowers and likes to have money. She asked me to buy bouquets made of RMB, and I bought them for her." Che said, "I spent all the money and repented." He is from Shanghai and met Wang when traveling in Changsha in July 2021. Later, they became netizens and often played games together. In March and April 2023, Mr. Che and Mr. Wang will meet twice. In May, they will register and get the certificate.

Before registration, according to Wang's request, Che gave the other party 188000 yuan as a betrothal gift, and bought gold necklaces, bracelets, diamond rings and a 26000 yuan Louis Vuitton bag. However, after they registered for marriage, they only met twice and never lived together. According to Che, Wang asked him to decorate her house in Shanghai and she would come back to live in Shanghai. But after the decoration, Wang said he was unwilling to come to Shanghai and filed for divorce. In August 2023, Mr. Che filed a divorce lawsuit.

The judgment made by the Ningxiang Court in November 2023 holds that the plaintiff and the defendant lived together for a short time before marriage, still lived and lived in two places after registration of marriage, and only met twice. For the subsequent life, there is no consistent planning, no complete family community and stable living conditions, it is not appropriate to consider that there has been a stable common life, and from the original It can be seen from the defendant's WeChat chat records that the defendant has no plan to live together with the plaintiff and treats marriage as a joke, so it supports the plaintiff's claim for the defendant to return the bride price.

The judgment of the court is based on the Interpretation of the Supreme People's Court on the Application of the Marriage and Family Part of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (I) (hereinafter referred to as the Interpretation of the Marriage and Family Part). The Interpretation of Marriage and Family Compilation clarifies three kinds of situations that the court should support in returning betrothal gifts: if both parties have not gone through marriage registration procedures, if both parties have gone through marriage registration procedures but do not live together, if pre marital payments have caused difficulties for the payer, the latter two should be conditional on the divorce of both parties.

From February 1 this year, the Provisions of the Supreme People's Court on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Cases Involving Bride Gifts Disputes (hereinafter referred to as the Provisions) came into force. The Provisions clearly stated that it is prohibited to ask for property through marriage. If one party claims property through marriage in the name of betrothal gifts and the other party requests the return, the people's court shall support it.

However, the people's court generally does not support the request of one party to return the bride price paid according to custom when the two parties have gone through marriage registration and live together. However, if the time of living together is short and the amount of the betrothal gifts is too high, the Regulations require that the people's court can determine whether to return and the specific proportion of the return according to the actual use of the betrothal gifts and the dowry, taking into account the amount of the betrothal gifts, the situation of living together and pregnancy, the fault of both parties and other facts, combined with local customs.

The judge of Ningxiang Court believed that the case was in line with the situation that "the time of living together was short and the amount of betrothal gifts was too high", so it was included in the centralized live broadcast of the day.

At the execution site, when asked about the whereabouts of the betrothal gifts, Wang said "lost". The executive police found a gold necklace and a Louis Vuitton brand bag at the scene. Then, the executive judge took Wang to the police car, asked where the bride price was going, and took the measure of detention and summons against Wang in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Civil Procedure Law on obstruction of civil proceedings.

On May 8, Wang was detained for 15 days by the Ningxiang Court for refusing to report his property truthfully.

　　 How to determine the scope of betrothal gifts

Facing the live broadcast, Che said that from 2023 to now, he has spent about 500000 yuan for the woman, including 200000 yuan of online loans. In response, some netizens said in the news comment area that "half of the 500000 yuan lottery gift will be returned", "indicating the shortcut to becoming rich".

Zhao Hongling, an agent of Mr. Che and a lawyer of Yingqiqi Bangxianhui (Yueyang) Law Firm, told the reporter of Zhongqing Daily. On the day of payment of the betrothal gifts, Che paid 188000 yuan, made a special transfer of "13145.20 yuan" through WeChat, bought clothes worth 8000 yuan with Wang, and made some other small transfers. The total amount paid on that day was 215000 yuan. In addition to the large gifts worth more than 70000 yuan given during the marriage, as well as various transfers and consumption of more than 50000 yuan during the marriage, Mr. Che applied for more than 350000 yuan in the lawsuit.

After the judgment of this case came into effect, Mr. Che said that he could not let Mr. Wang go all the time and promised him that he would not apply for the execution of the effective judgment as long as he could remarry. Mr. Wang immediately agreed. Later, she asked Mr. Che for more than 100000 yuan, but he failed to remarry. Mr. Che immediately asked to resume execution. Zhao Hongling said that at present, this part of the amount has been prosecuted separately, and the court has not yet made a judgment.

In the judgment of this case, the Ningxiang Court supported Che's claim to return the bride price of 200645 yuan. As for the gold necklace, diamond ring, bracelet and other items presented to Wang, because Wang pawned them, he was also required to return them to Che at a discount of 52187.9 yuan, and the original items were returned to the Louis Vuitton brand bag involved in the case.

In an interview with China News Weekly, Zhang Shu, the presiding judge of the case, explained the process of determining the amount. In the transfer between Che and Wang, the first one that is excluded and not recognized as betrothal gifts is the daily small consumption expenditure, such as the expenditure incurred when the two parties meet after marriage. In this link, 41501 yuan transferred by Chemour to Wang after marriage was eliminated.

Secondly, transfers involving special figures, such as 5200, 1314 and 520, which are made to express love during the period of love and emotional cultivation, will also be eliminated. In this link, 8348 yuan was finally eliminated. Thirdly, the small amount of money transferred by the man to the woman's mother, brother and grandmother was deemed as human relations, and 19744 yuan was removed from this link.

In fact, how to determine the scope of betrothal gifts has always been a difficult problem in judicial practice. Zhao Hongling has been exposed to such cases for a long time. She feels that for a period of time, this part mainly depends on the discretion of judges, and the results of similar cases are very different.

In 2021, Hu Yunhong, a professor of the National Academy of Judges, once carried out 158 questionnaires relying on 25 provincial people's courts in China, and analyzed and studied more than 175000 relevant judicial documents on the China Judicial Documents Network, which took "marital property return disputes" as the cause of action. She found that the scientific determination of the scope of betrothal gifts was the most important and difficult point reflected by the judges in the survey responses. Due to different customs and habits in different regions, courts in different regions have different views on whether the property given by one party to the other in the process of love, the common expenses of catering, etc. after receiving the betrothal gifts, and whether other forms of gifts such as meeting gifts, wedding gifts, "three gold", and restructuring fees are recognized as betrothal gifts.

The Regulations, which came into effect on February 1 this year, require the people's court to determine the scope of betrothal gifts according to the purpose of one party's payment of property, taking into account the local customs of both parties, the time and method of payment, the value of property, the payers and receivers, and other facts.

The Regulations also further clarifies that the property paid in some cases does not belong to betrothal gifts, including gifts and gift money of small value that one party pays at festivals, birthdays and other special commemorative points; Daily consumption expenditure of one party to express or enhance feelings; Other properties of small value.

Chen Yifang, President of the First Civil Division of the Supreme People's Court, once interpreted and formulated the Regulations, mainly considering two factors. One is to properly handle the interests of both parties. The long-term common life of both parties is an important basis for the payment of betrothal gifts. For "flash away" and other situations, if it is determined that all of them will not be returned only because of the marriage registration, it is unfair to the payment party; The second is to protect women's legitimate rights and interests. Living together, especially the pregnancy of children, will have a certain degree of impact on women's physical and mental health. It is against the principle of fairness to determine that women return all betrothal gifts only because they have not gone through marriage registration.

Therefore, in two articles, the Regulations clarify that the court will determine whether to return and the specific proportion of return from the actual use of betrothal gifts and dowry, taking into account the facts of common life and pregnancy, and the faults of both parties. She also emphasized that due to the different circumstances of individual cases, the arrangement and combination of many factors also have different effects on the judgment results, and it is difficult to specify the specific proportion of return in the provisions, so the court should deal with it according to the specific case.

　　 Live broadcast of "returning betrothal gifts" positively guides the establishment of a correct concept of marriage and love

At present, among the betrothal gifts that Ningxiang Court ordered Wang to return, the Louis Vuitton brand bag worth more than 20000 yuan has been returned. The court has also frozen and deducted the deposit of more than 30000 yuan under Wang's name. In addition, the court has executed a gold ware worth more than 20000 yuan by Wang, with a total of more than 50000 yuan, which will continue to be promoted in the future.

It was reported that some of the cases broadcast on the same day were fully or partially implemented on the spot, some reached a settlement agreement and implemented in the form of 4000 yuan per month, and another person was detained by the judiciary.

"I am a lawyer in Changsha. I know that the Hunan High Court will also often open live broadcasts to directly attack the front-line enforcement scene, but this is a 'fire'. Let the public understand the court's implementation process, which will have a more positive guidance for public behavior, and I support and encourage this practice." Zhao Hongling said.

"From the perspective of judicial practice, a large number of betrothal gifts that exceed the normal expenses of families have become a heavy burden for many families. In the case of short marriage age, this imbalance is particularly prominent, which leads to intensified conflicts and an increase in the number of betrothal gifts disputes. This just shows that high betrothal gifts cannot guarantee the stability of marriage. On the contrary, overemphasizing the amount of betrothal gifts and neglecting the emotional foundation will lay hidden dangers for the harmony and stability of marriage and family. " Wu Jingli, Vice President of the First Civil Division of the Supreme People's Court, once said.

The relevant person in charge of the Ningxiang Court said that he hoped that through this live broadcast, he would convey the correct concept of marriage, guide the construction of a harmonious marriage relationship, promote the transformation of social ethos, enable the people to have a deeper understanding and reflection on the betrothal gifts issue while seeing the dignity of the law and judicial justice, and truly let marriage begin with love and let betrothal gifts belong to "ceremony". (Reporter Liu Yan)

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