| The article entitled "A Study on Procedure of Civil Trials" is divided into eight chapters. The first three chapters come under general introduction dealing mainly with principles of civil trial procedure while involving guidelines in the contents of civil trial procedure concepts, value selection, research significance, course of change and development, procedural creation as well as gist restructuring. The latter five chapters ramify into specific theories probing on pre-trial Preparatory procedure, court trial procedure, simple procedure (including small sum litigation procedure, appeal procedure and retrial procedure designing and system improvements.Chapter I: General Survey on Civil Trial deals with the major significance of civil trial procedure contents and Structure and the researches on civil trial procedure to the rule of law and practical levels. It probes on such basic theoretical issues as the two major values that are to be quantified in civil trial procedure: the conflict and balancing of values between procedural justice and procedural economy.Chapter II: The Structuring of Civil Trial Procedure. This part discusses the development trend and reform of civil trial procedure in China and the rest of the world. Following in the wake, the chapter outlines the integrated line of thinking in building China's modern civil trial procedure, that is, in building a democratic and scientific civil trial procedure. Creation of a more democratic civil trial procedural system, i.e., making the people's court's power of trial and the clients' democratic rights more institutional and legal-based in better compliance with the new order requirements of the socialist market economy; 2. Procedure science: (1) Science in procedural setup; (2) Science in realizing procedural restraint mechanism; and (3) Coordination of inter-procedure unification and between civil trial and other procedures.Chapter III: the Subject Structure of Civil Trial Procedure. This part mainly probes on how to define the functions of the court and the rights of the clients, how to better display the role of the litigants in the lawsuit procedure. Civil litigation necessitates respect for the role of the clients as litigants in lawsuits. It also needs to intensify the swaying power of the judges at the same time so as to materialize the objective of both judicial justice and procedural economy.Chapter IV: Pre-trial Preparatory Procedure. Through making a comparative study of the pre-trial preparatory procedures in the major countries of the two legal systems, the chapter conducts an investigation on basic principles with regard to the status of pre-trial preparatory procedure, the loss of power in pre-trial preparatory procedure, the sharing of burdens between the judges and the clients as well as the reconciliation of the preparatory rocess. In combination with the specific issues encountered in China's judicial practice, the chapter also raises its own views on China's orientation in civil litigation preparatory procedure as well as procedural matters. It holds that pre-trial preparatory procedure should be a must and the core of the procedure is the treatment of focal points in the disputes between the clients. It maintains that the setup of different preparatory procedures should be considered depending on whether the civil cases are simple or complicated.Chapter V: Court Trial Procedure. First of all, it discusses the status and functions of court trial procedure and the three major principles to be followed in the procedure: the principle of open trial, the principle of direct wording and the principle of concentrated handling. The second section outlines China's court trial structure as a mixed court trial structure practicing the principle of focusing on hearing as the main form with investigations as the supplementary. As far as court trial procedure is concerned, the chapter probes into the separation and coordination of court investigation and debate procedure. It holds that the method of partitioning in the theory of two phases... |
