Comparative law notes
"Discovery" is a system under common law. It does not exist in China. Instead China has a procedure called pre-trial exchange of evidence - it moves the process of adducing evidence during the trial to the pre-trial stage, so as to save time in formal trial. Whilst it has the same in effect, it is still quite different from the concept of "pre-trial discovery". In Hong Kong, discovery (文件透露) is a well-established pre-trial procedure that requires each side to disclose to the other the documents he possesses that relate to the case. After disclosing the documents, both sides must allow the other side to inspect the actual documents.
