First of all, "lawyer witness" refers to the lawyer's non-litigation business activities in which a law firm accepts the entrustment or application of the parties and assigns lawyers with lawyer qualifications or legal professional qualifications and lawyer's practice certificate to carefully examine and prove the authenticity of relevant legal acts or legal facts in the name of the law firm and witness lawyers.
"Lawyer's notarization" is an activity that notaries prove the authenticity and legality of civil legal acts, facts and documents with legal significance according to the application of natural persons, legal persons or other organizations and legal procedures. For example, the notarization of Hong Kong companies (also known as the witness of Hong Kong company lawyers) is generally used for legal documents submitted by Hong Kong companies when they set up representative offices, domestic investment companies or legal proceedings in the Mainland, and can also be used for Hong Kong companies to buy real estate in the Mainland. Generally, the most common documents of Hong Kong companies are used in Chinese mainland, and China needs to be authorized by the Ministry of Justice to entrust a notary office to notarize them, and then issue a notarization statement, and finally forward it to China Legal Service (Hong Kong) Co., Ltd. with a forwarding stamp.
In fact, there are still some differences between the two. There is no legal lawyer witness system in China. Although there are lawyers as witnesses, the notarization effect is the highest, and Hong Kong has a relatively sound lawyer witness system.
Can lawyer's witness replace lawyer's notarization?
Of course, lawyer's testimony cannot replace notarization. Because notarization is a proof guaranteed by social credibility, it enjoys high legal effect, and the notarized facts as evidence belong to evidence without evidence, which can be used as evidence to directly identify the facts of the case. However, the lawyer's testimony can only be used as witness testimony, which belongs to indirect evidence and cannot be used as evidence for finalization.
The lawyer's witness is only a person's personality as a guarantee, but the quality of the lawyer industry in China is uneven, and the lawyer's professional ethics and personal personality can not be recognized by the court, so the lawyer's witness has almost no legal effect. Like you and me, it belongs to witness testimony.
However, the lawyer's testimony has legal effect only in the west, especially in Britain. Because of the high entry threshold for lawyers in Britain, those who can enter the legal profession (especially those who appear in court) are all elites of society, all of whom are upper-class people. Therefore, their proof based on lawyers' professional ethics and personality enjoys legal effect and belongs to the fact of exemption from evidence.
The above contents are for reference only. If you want to know more about the process and operation steps of notarization for Hong Kong lawyers, you can leave a message to Consultant Yang! Specifically, the actual reply of the professional consultant shall prevail.