1. Can the plaintiff hire a lawyer if he does not appear in court?
According to the provisions of China's civil law, whether to hire a lawyer in civil litigation is voluntary, and there is no mandatory requirement by law. If you hire a lawyer, you can entrust a lawyer with full authority, or you can not appear in court, and of course you can also appear in court. If there is no lawyer, you must appear in court by yourself. There is only one exception, that is, divorce cases. Both parties must appear in court with or without lawyers.
If there is no identity relationship involved, the lawyer can be fully represented and the parties may not appear in court. Cases involving personal nature, such as divorce, can only be represented, and the parties need to appear in court.
Second, the defendant does not appear in court in civil proceedings.
Article 143 of China's Civil Procedure Law stipulates: "If the defendant refuses to appear in court without justifiable reasons after being summoned by summons, or withdraws from court without the permission of the court, he may make a judgment by default."
The defendant must meet three conditions for judging by default: there is evidence that the court has issued a summons to the defendant, and the defendant refuses to appear in court or withdraws from court; The defendant fails to appear in court or withdraws from court halfway without justifiable reasons.
There are four kinds of evidence to prove that the court has issued a summons to the defendant. The judge directly handed the summons to the defendant, and the defendant signed the service receipt after receiving the summons; The court mailed the summons to the defendant by registered mail, and the defendant signed the receipt of the registered letter; If the defendant refuses to be summoned, please ask the neighborhood Committee and neighbors to be present. The judge will put the summons in the defendant's residence in public, and the witness will sign to prove that the defendant refused to sign it. If the defendant's whereabouts are unknown and cannot be served by the above methods, the court will entrust a newspaper to publish a service announcement. 60 days after the announcement was published, whether the defendant saw the newspaper or not, it was deemed to have been delivered. Take the attached volume of the newspaper that published the announcement as the service certificate.
Third, the plaintiff does not appear in court.
According to the provisions of the Civil Procedure Law, if the plaintiff fails to appear in court, it shall be handled as automatic withdrawal. However, a special agent may be entrusted to appear in court. If a special agent appears in court, it may be deemed that the parties appear in court in person.
There are two kinds of agents, one is the general agent and has no decision-making power. To put it bluntly, it is to help yourself with a lawsuit. This kind of agency relationship is generally adopted by lawyers; The other is a special agent, who has the right to decide, such as whether to prosecute, whether to withdraw the lawsuit, whether to accept mediation, whether to appeal, etc. For the parties, this is a lawsuit for themselves.
Agents are usually entrusted to trusted close relatives. As far as I'm concerned, my mother can be my father's special agent. Let my father fill out a power of attorney, and pay attention to the words "special agency relationship".
In addition, if the parties really can't appear in court on time due to sudden illness, they can also apply to the court for an extension of the court session with the hospital's diagnosis certificate, which is actually beneficial to the defendant and increases the preparation time of the other party. Plaintiffs generally don't use it.
To sum up, lawyers can be authorized to represent their own cases. Generally, you can appear in court or not, but the premise also needs court approval. For some special cases, the plaintiff himself also needs to appear in court. Therefore, when dealing with them, we must follow the provisions stipulated by law.