Judicial Mediation Involving Social Management

In recent years, mediation is a heat topic in China which cannot be ignored. Specially, in 2009, the Supreme People's Court of China issued a new police,"putting priority to mediation and combining the two methods of mediation and trail", which triggered a movement of mediation and a strong inclination for such traditional resolution. Under the influence of the new policy, mediation plays an active role in the court system and has great effect on both the outlook of the justice and the beliefs of the judges.By his special angle of view, the author tries to explain the rationale behind the new policy, the function and the limitation of mediation. In this basis, the author forwards his suggestion for the reform of mediation system. The author holds that the system of dispute resolution of China is facing the great challenges of diversification and mobility of the society in the period of transformation. In order to solve the acute contradiction caused by the social transformation, the current system of dispute solution becomes expedient, feeding—back and movement type. Mediation perfectly reflects the needs of social management nowadays and the expectation of such system.By reviewing the history of development of the justice, we can see that the justice has been considered as part of the society and therefore should take part in the social management. Besides, the practice of"comprehensive management"has great impact on judicial philosophy. By the link of"justice activism"and"the people's justice", the demands of the politics successfully translate into the mission of the justice.The core contents of the new policy of judicial mediation are two folded: one is to strengthen court-performed mediation and put priority to such method to deal with disputes which enter into courts; the other is to facilitate the convergence of the two systems between trail and mediation.When the judicial system is put into the net of social management, the author finds that it occupies certain places in the net, namely, the systems of the Social Security Comprehensive Management and the mechanism of Protection for the Rights of the People. However, due to the impact of traditional philosophy of social management and the pressure of the contradiction arising in the new peorid, the fuction of judicial mediation on resolving conflicts and maintaining social stability is overestimated while, on the other hand, the fuction on protecting the right of the parities involved is somehow neglected.While overviewed in the angle of social management, the author draws the following conclusions: first, it shall reasonably distribute different social resources and make each part of the social mechanism become functioning. Therefore justice should participate into"social management"through its own judicial activities which may relect not rather sidewalk its special value and function. Secondly, the new policy and the current judicial practice put too much emphasis on the system of the Social Security Comprehensive Management rather than the system of Protection for the Rights of the People. As such, the expectation of network of the social management cannot be fully fulfilled. Thirdly, in the future, reform for the mediation system should be"parties—oriented"and the system of multiple dispute resolution should be greatly cultivated together with the perfection of the network of society.The article takes a rather new perspective of"social management"to pore into the issue of the new policy of judicial mediation. The relationship and interative between the society, the justice and judicial mediation is deeply explored. The author also discusses the important theoretical issues such as the relationship between good governance and the Rule of Law, the fuction of justice, the direction of judicial reform and the fuction and limitation of judicial mediation in the respect of its social responsibility. The author hopes that, by the new angle of pointview and some new analyzing tools, the article may reflect the phenomenon of"mediation heat"so as to deepen the discussion in this field and will be benefit for the procedural legislation under way.