On January 17, 2018, the Supreme People's Court of PRC released a judicial interpretation on the country's Marriage Law saying that a person may not be held responsible for debts incurred by their spouse.
It is clear that debts incurred solely by one partner are not "joint debts" for a couple protecting the disadvantaged party in the relationship.
Brother Wang said that the explanation was "significant".
He explained that many spouses experienced intimidation and fraud during their marriage or when they filed for divorce, that they should repay jointly debts incurred by their partners during the marriage due to divisions on "joint debts" according to the Supreme People's Court's previous judicial interpretation of the Marriage Law published on February 2017.
In a press conference about the new interpretation, the Supreme People's Court claimed, "With rapid economic and social development in China in recent years, great changes have taken place in the property structure of urban and rural families and the public concept of marriage and family and family investment channels have gradually diversified, resulting in fast-growing fortunes. Therefore, it has added to the risk of producing debts.
In real life, classic cases frequently occur that a couple cheat creditors or one spouse colludes with a creditor in entrapping the other spouse. The factors in family life make the identity of joint debts shared by couples complicated and increase the difficulties of hearing cases in the people's court concerning joint debts. Although the Marriage Law and the judicial interpretation of the law form a system that guards risks of a couple's harming interests of their creditors or the collusion between a husband or wife and the creditor to damage the other partner's interests, problems on the identification standard of joint debts and evidences proving joint liability for debts fails to be completely solved, attracting wide social concern.
- Translated by Karen Luo
