Lately, as I’ve been reviewing some of the cases I’ve handled in the past, one question has been weighing on my mind. Many times, when explaining the conclusion of “insufficient evidence” to the parties involved, I feel an lingering sense of helplessness. Legally and procedurally, everything holds up — but when faced with those unwilling, unconvinced eyes, something just feels wrong. Especially when it comes to defining who bears the adverse consequences of “insufficient evidence,” it gets particularly tricky.
Is it because the party failed to provide sufficient proof? Or is it a structural limitation of the system itself? Or is this simply a price that must be paid for the rule of law?
After much thought, I’ve realised there’s no single sentence that can answer this. So, I’ll use a few cases to briefly illustrate the issue.
Insufficient Evidence — Who Bears the Responsibility?
In September 2019, Du Mou stepped into the petition reception room for the first time. Over the next seven years, he filed more than thirty petitions, signed two written pledges to cease petitions and desist from litigation, accepted 20,000 yuan in financial compensation, and even presented a banner to the case-handling unit. This April, Du Mou was still at the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration.
Seven years, one cycle, repeated twice. Beginning and ending in the same place — still the same demand, still the same “insufficient evidence” decision.
Du Mou’s case is not complicated. He believed he had been defrauded by his business partner, but after investigation, the public security authority determined it was an economic dispute and lawfully decided not to file the case. Leaders received him, joint mediation was conducted, financial compensation was paid, a pledge was signed, and a banner was presented — all the grassroots tools were used, all the procedures were followed. But Du Mou would not accept it.
He would not accept those four words: “insufficient evidence.”
These four words are so common in judicial documents that almost no one pauses to ask: What do they really mean? And the moment they are spoken, who bears the responsibility?
Level One: Evidence Is Monopolised at the Starting Point
A few years ago, I received a consultation from a fellow townsman. He had been working as a security guard in a residential compound for over a decade and was about to turn 59 — close to retirement — when he was dismissed.
The company presented very solid evidence. Surveillance footage from the guard room showed him smoking, playing on his phone, and dozing off during work hours. The company produced the Employee Handbook, which explicitly stated that such conduct constituted serious disciplinary violations warranting dismissal. He had signed for the handbook and attended related training sessions.
He knew he had engaged in such behaviour during work, but he was even more aware that his colleagues who had worked alongside him for over a decade had done exactly the same — dozing off on night shifts, sneaking a look at their phones. In an industry with 12-hour shifts, this was practically the norm.
But the company didn’t dismiss anyone else — only him. The reason? Shortly before his retirement, he had approached the company to discuss backdated social insurance contributions. In the end, nothing came of it, because the precondition was that he would have to cover most of the arrears himself, as the company, under the principle of fairness, had already paid its share to him as a monthly subsidy.
And it was precisely because of this that the company began retrieving surveillance footage, digging up records of his past disciplinary violations over the years, and meticulously piecing together a chain of evidence for “serious disciplinary violations warranting dismissal.”
Labour arbitration, court litigation — he lost at every stage. The judgment was crystal clear: the evidence was conclusive, the procedure lawful.
He knew what the surveillance footage had captured. But there was one thing he simply couldn’t get past: for over a decade, he had been doing exactly what his colleagues had been doing, and they were all doing the same thing. Why was everyone else fine, while he was the one being dismissed?
The law does not answer that question. The law only recognises evidence.
Another case involves the father of a former classmate. He rented seventy mu of fish ponds in a village outside his hometown, poured his life savings into renovating them, and signed a twenty-year contract, hoping to make one last push while he still could.
At first, village officials often brought people to fish there, and out of politeness, he never charged them. But later, they became more brazen, bringing large groups and catching dozens or even a hundred jin at a time — which changed the nature of the matter entirely. Because of this, an argument broke out, and the relationship completely soured.
Then the village started making its move.
First, they cut off the upstream water flow to force him out. He sought help and coordination everywhere, but to no avail. Eventually, the case went to court, and the village produced solid evidence: water quality test reports showing pH levels exceeding the standard, plastic waste scattered around the ponds, and damage to the pond embankments. Every item was backed by photos, records, and dates.
When he pulled out the contract he had signed with the village committee, he saw that Article 8, “Obligations of Party B,” listed 22 items — things like having someone on duty 24 hours a day to prevent children from falling in, disposing of dead fish only outside the village, not littering, and not obstructing villagers’ access. Each clause was like a landmine. For the lessor, gathering evidence was almost effortless — just take a photo when no one was at the ponds to prove “no one on duty,” or snap a picture of a dead fish by the edge to prove “improper disposal.”
The court ruled in favour of the village committee and terminated the contract.
When the father and son came to me with the judgment, their faces were full of bewilderment. They were not unaware of what they had signed, but when they signed the contract, they had only focused on the rent and the lease term — everything else seemed like boilerplate. But once the other side started invoking those clauses, they were essentially using the very contract they had signed to pick apart every single word.
These two cases share something in common.
The company had surveillance cameras, an employee handbook, and signed acknowledgments; the village committee had a five-page contract, with Article 8 alone taking up two pages. When the dispute arose, the evidence was naturally on their side. The security guard and the fish pond operator were not “unreasonable” — but their “reasonableness” lacked evidentiary support. Even if some evidence had once existed, it was never in their hands.
And the judgments they received were entirely “lawful.” The judges ruled based on the evidence submitted by both parties, not on who was more pitiable or who had a stronger case. But the question is: where did the evidence come from? Before the dispute even arose, it had already been prepared by one party.
This is the first face of “insufficient evidence” in reality — and the most easily overlooked one. The evidence does exist, but only in the hands of one party. The law demands evidence, but the ability to produce it is unequal from the very beginning.
Level Two: Evidence Is Dissipated Along the Way
Last year, I came across a criminal case involving a family in a village assaulting a neighbour. There was no surveillance footage and no third-party witnesses. The victim suffered multiple injuries to the head and body, stayed at home to recuperate, had no one else in the house, and his phone was broken. It was three days before he reported the incident, after which he was taken to the hospital by the police station. The diagnosis: multiple minor injuries all over the body, plus one instance of minor injuries (two fractured ribs).
The problem lay in two areas.
First, no one admitted to beating him.
The other family all denied involvement. Each said, “I didn’t hit him,” or “I was just breaking it up.” There was no surveillance, no eyewitnesses. The victim could identify that the entire family had attacked him, but regarding the rib fractures, he indeed could not specify who had inflicted them.
The police thoroughly investigated the case, summoned all those involved, and questioned everyone who might have known something. The conclusion was the same: it could be proven that the victim had been assaulted, but it could not be proven who had done it.
In assault cases, the prerequisite for conviction is the ability to establish a causal link between the perpetrator and the resulting injury. Where there are multiple assailants, a chaotic scene, and a lack of objective evidence, practice often encounters the difficulty that “the existing evidence is insufficient to establish the stage at which the injury was inflicted and by whom specifically.” If even the direct perpetrator cannot be identified, it becomes very difficult to transfer the case for prosecution review.
Second, the procuratorate held that the rib fractures did not exclude reasonable doubt.
This was the more fatal blow. The victim had waited three days before reporting the case, and the procuratorate raised what seemed like an irrefutable question: “Is it possible that these two fractured ribs were intentionally or accidentally caused by him during those three days?”
This question was not baseless. In judicial practice, rib fractures as minor injuries do present some controversy. Adults can indeed fracture their own ribs relatively easily under certain circumstances — such as exerting excessive force, falling, or impact. There have been similar cases in the past where victims, seeking to escalate the severity of injuries and pursue criminal liability against perpetrators, inflicted more serious harm on themselves when the original injury would have only constituted minor injuries.
Precisely because of such precedents, when handling injuries reported “three days later,” the case-handling authorities inevitably take this into account. Forensic assessments of the timing of fracture formation inherently have a degree of ambiguity — all fractures within three weeks fall under the category of “fresh fractures,” and imaging cannot precisely distinguish whether they were sustained on the day of the incident or the following day. The delay in reporting means that everything within that time window becomes a variable that “cannot be ruled out.”
The procuratorate was not disbelieving the victim; it was simply following the principle of evidence-based adjudication and doing what it was supposed to do — exhausting all possibilities and excluding all reasonable doubt.
But once the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard is triggered, the victim is forced to confront an almost impossible question: “How do you prove that you didn’t break these two ribs yourself during those three days?”
In a state of insufficient evidence, this challenge is not only irrefutable but also enough to undermine the entire foundation for prosecution. The victim wants to argue: I have injuries all over my body — my head, my back, my limbs all show signs of being struck. But if the fractures were self-inflicted, then couldn’t all the other injuries have been self-inflicted as well? Once that line of reasoning is opened, the entire case collapses.
The moment the phrase “does not exclude reasonable doubt” appears, the path to criminal prosecution has essentially reached its end.
The victim knew very well: it was that family who beat him, and it happened that day. But the law doesn’t recognise “knowing in one’s heart.” The law only recognises evidence. There was no surveillance, no witnesses, no timely report, and the perpetrators remained silent collectively. And now, even his own injuries had a question mark hanging over them. Every gap in the evidentiary chain presented an opportunity for the other side to “dissipate evidence.” And the law’s stance on every gap is the same: as long as there is room for reasonable doubt, there can be no conviction.
Level Three: The End of Procedure Is Reached, but the Person Has Not
In recent years, several parties have kept coming to us, asking for help with criminal cases involving insufficient evidence.
The most typical case involved a woman from Jiangxi. She was in her thirties, divorced with no children, and had been working hard outside for many years, saving up some money. A few years ago, she started dating a man who was also divorced. They were together for over two years, and their relationship seemed good. Over that time, she gave him about five to six hundred thousand yuan.
The man said he was in the construction business and needed working capital. She helped him pay off credit card bills, covered material costs, and even took out a 300,000 yuan consumer loan in her own name, handing the money over to him for “renovation.” She thought they were building a life together, so money wasn’t something to be particular about.
Later, she discovered that what he called “divorced” was really just a separation. He still went back to his hometown during holidays and lived with his ex-wife and son. And most of the money she had given him had gone toward building a villa back in his hometown.
Once she realised what had happened, she went to the police to report fraud. The police filed the case and even took compulsory measures against the suspect. But after investigation, they concluded that it was an economic dispute and did not constitute fraud. The case was closed.
Then her boyfriend “disappeared” to avoid her. She believed it was fraud. The police filed the case and took compulsory measures against the suspect, but further investigation revealed insufficient evidence, and the police closed the case. The procuratorate reviewed the matter and upheld the decision.
She was dissatisfied and went to the procuratorate to apply for supervision over the filing of the case. The procuratorate reviewed the matter and upheld the decision to close the case.
She then started filing petitions. Leaders received her, the case-handling unit explained the law and reasoning — she refused to accept any of it.
I don’t think she didn’t understand. She knew the police had investigated and the procuratorate had reviewed it. It wasn’t that she didn’t know there was no evidence of a crime — she simply didn’t accept that conclusion. In her view, that money was lent to him. There were IOUs. It was built on trust with the intention of marriage. But he took the money to renovate his hometown house and support his ex-wife — how was that not fraud?
But the law doesn’t see it that way.
One of the key criteria for distinguishing between “relationship disputes” and “criminal fraud” is whether the perpetrator had the “intent to unlawfully possess.” If there was a genuine emotional relationship between the parties and the financial transactions had a reasonable civil basis, even if the relationship eventually breaks down and the money is not repaid, the matter can only be pursued through civil litigation — not criminal prosecution. Even if, in civil court, she is deemed to have “borrowed funds for cohabitation” and held jointly liable for repayment, that liability remains at the civil level and cannot cross the threshold for criminal filing.
She couldn’t understand this distinction. In her mind, “deceiving someone emotionally is deception; taking their money is even more so.”
There is another, even more extreme case, though I won’t go into too much detail since it involves public officials. In this case, two men and one woman were in the same workplace, and one of the men and the woman were married to each other. The third party had an improper relationship with the woman. When the husband found out, he stormed into the third party’s home and beat him.
The police intervened and imposed an administrative penalty on the husband: five days of detention and a 500-yuan fine. At the same time, mediation was arranged, and both parties signed a public security mediation agreement. Later, all three parties were also subjected to disciplinary sanctions.
By all accounts, the matter should have ended there.
But the third party refused to accept it. He insisted that the husband had “illegally intruded into his home” and that this constituted a crime, so a criminal case should be filed. He repeatedly petitioned various government departments, accusing the police of “inaction” and “cover-up,” demanding that the husband be held criminally liable.
The police responded that the scene did not involve serious consequences, both sides had sustained minor injuries, and the husband had admitted his fault and accepted the penalty — not meeting the threshold for the crime of illegal intrusion into a dwelling. Additionally, the administrative penalty had been imposed and the mediation was settled. Legally, the matter had been resolved.
But the third party did not accept this.
He insisted that if the police didn’t arrest and charge someone, they were covering for the other party. He felt he had been humiliated and needed the other party to pay a greater price to erase the shame of being caught having an affair and beaten.
He was standing at the end of the procedure, but he insisted that it wasn’t the end.
Now, five years have passed, and this person is still filing petitions.
Level Four: The Case Is Closed, but the Matter Lingers
The three levels above all concern “insufficient evidence” itself — evidence being monopolised, evidence being dissipated, and obsessions beyond evidence. But this level gets closer to the opposite of “evidence”: the case is closed, and may even have been lawfully terminated, but the petitioner has not been terminated.
Let me start with the longest-running case I’ve encountered.
This started around the time I first began working. The matter itself was straightforward: a villager, because of the distribution of land compensation for “married-out women,” took legal action against the village committee. Her case went through first instance, second instance, the provincial high court’s rejection of a retrial application, and the procuratorate’s refusal to support supervision — all four levels of judicial review were completed. From a procedural standpoint, this was not a case of “insufficient evidence” — it was a case where “all available procedures had been exhausted, all available evidence had been examined, and the conclusion remained unchanged.”
In 2023, the provincial high court lawfully made a final decision to close her petition case. The notice of closure was served. By design, this meant the case could no longer be accepted, reassigned, or circulated for reporting.
But from the time of closure up to this year, this villager has petitioned the Supreme People’s Court and the circuit courts 25 times through written letters and in-person visits.
What does 25 times mean? Roughly once a month. She is no longer “protecting her own rights” — in fact, her imagined “rights” no longer legally exist, and there is nothing left to protect. Everything she does is simply to prove one thing: as long as she is still here, this matter is not over.
What’s peculiar about this case is that her financial situation is not bad, her family is harmonious, and her children are all married. She is not petitioning for money or survival. She is just repeating a single motion — writing letters, sending them, going out, going to court, coming back — for fifteen straight years.
Another case reveals a different form of “closed but not closed.”
The owner of a small restaurant had entered into a partnership to run the business. Due to a dispute with his partner, the restaurant was forced to close. During the closure, the restaurant fell behind on rent. The landlord, in accordance with the contract, notified the partner that the lease was terminated (and it was the partner who had signed the lease with the landlord). The partner agreed to vacate the premises by a certain date, but when the time came, he could not reach the owner. The landlord had already signed a lease agreement with a new tenant. After consulting with the partner, the new tenant hired a cleaning company to remove the remaining items, during which some of the equipment and appliances inside were damaged.
When the owner found out, he reported it to the police, demanding that the partner and landlord be investigated for “the crime of sabotaging production and business operations.” The police made five decisions not to file the case. He was dissatisfied and filed repeated petitions.
Later, in order to resolve this long-standing petition case, the higher-level public security authority adopted an unconventional approach — based on the facts of the harm described by the party, they exceptionally filed a criminal case. But the charge they filed was “the crime of intentional destruction of property,” not the “crime of sabotaging production and business operations” that he was demanding.
He refused to sign the case-filing notice. In his view, the partner had screwed him over, the restaurant had closed, and all the belongings had been cleared out — that was “sabotaging production and business operations.” He didn’t care how the law defined the requisite mental intent.
The case was investigated for a few years after filing, but ultimately, no sufficient evidence of criminal activity was uncovered. Eventually, the public security authority lawfully decided to close the case.
After the case was closed, his petitions did not stop. When the case was first filed, he refused to accept the charge; after it was closed, he refused to accept that even more. The initial exceptional filing was meant to provide a procedural outlet for this long-standing petition case — but the party refused to accept that outlet. His sole demand remained: charge someone with “sabotaging production and business operations.” Later, the provincial department also approved the termination of his petition case.
But in the days that followed, he continued to petition various government departments year after year, repeatedly accusing case-handling personnel of “inaction” and posting “grievances” online.
This case, together with the village land compensation case, points to the same issue: the law has given an “answer,” but the party believes it is not the “answer” they wanted.
“Lawful termination” is the final full stop that legal procedure can provide. But even after that full stop is drawn, the party can still refuse to recognise it.
At this level, the issue no longer has much to do with “evidence.” The case is closed, the legal process is complete, even the termination decision has been made — but the matter in the party’s heart is still there. He writes letters, visits offices, and repeats the same demands — not because he has found new evidence, nor because of procedural defects — but because “that feeling” has not been swallowed. And that feeling is beyond the jurisdiction of any legal document.
This is the fourth face of “insufficient evidence,” and the one closest to a final resolution: the law can terminate a case, but it cannot terminate a person’s obsession with “that feeling.”
Level Five: The Most Difficult “New Evidence” to Obtain
After reading the four levels of cases above, someone might ask: since the party doesn’t leave when the procedure ends, and doesn’t accept when the case is terminated, what else can the system do?
On 1 July 2026, the Measures of the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration for Further Regulating the Registration of Petitioners’ Visits officially took effect. Article 4 stipulates that those who visit Beijing to petition the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration or central departments or units, bypassing the authorities or units with the power to handle the matter at the corresponding level or the next higher level, must present written materials or electronic documents, such as notices or reply opinions, issued by provincial-level authorities or units regarding their petition matters. If they are unable to provide such documents or proof of their visit to a provincial-level authority, they will not be registered and will be directed to return to their place of origin and report their issues in accordance with laws and procedures. Article 6 stipulates that where reasonable demands in petition matters have been lawfully and completely resolved in accordance with policies, yet petitioners continue to repeatedly visit Beijing, the petition departments shall, together with the public security authorities, conduct legal education and persuasion, and they will not be registered, and the relevant data will not be included in statistics or reporting.
The logic of the system is clear: if the procedure has been followed and the conclusion is that the claim has been resolved, then repeated petitions cannot be allowed to invalidate that conclusion. The line that says “no longer register” is drawn at the end of the procedure.
But after that line is drawn, what are the parties left with in their hands?
What truly hinders their progress is a more fundamental rule — any restart of the procedure requires “new evidence.”
That “married-out woman,” after receiving the notice of termination, still went to the Supreme People’s Court 25 times. The restaurant owner, after his case was closed, is still filing petitions year after year. The public official, after receiving administrative penalties, disciplinary sanctions, and mediation, is still demanding that the “crime of illegal intrusion into a dwelling” be prosecuted. They are not unaware that the procedure has ended — they are standing at its endpoint, though with no “new evidence” in hand, and the feeling in their hearts has not dissipated.
To ask someone who has exhausted every possibility within the evidentiary chain to produce “new evidence” is itself a paradox.
Evidence is called “new” because it still exists and can still be uncovered. But the very reason a case is completed is precisely because everything that could be searched for has been searched, and everything that could be examined has been examined. When the system says “come back with new evidence,” that statement is at once a rule and an insurmountable barrier.
New regulations or old, what the law can do is repeat the same fact, over and over: insufficient evidence is insufficient evidence; no new evidence, no new procedure. The more times this is repeated, the more it seems to offer no flaw, and no way out.
But from another perspective, this is precisely where the law is honest. It knows its own limits — that it cannot conjure evidence out of thin air, and that it cannot swallow anyone’s bitterness for them. So it places that final threshold in the most visible position: if you have new evidence, you’re welcome; if not, this is where you stop.
For the party, this threshold feels cold. But for grassroots practitioners, understanding why this threshold exists might help them avoid simply repeating “there’s nothing we can do” the next time they face a party with an “insufficient evidence” case. Instead, they can offer a bit more composure and say: this is as far as the law’s door can open — but what lies beyond that door, we can figure out together. There may not be many solutions, but it’s better than leaving someone to face it alone.