Study On The Trial System Of People's Assessors Of China

Jury system, as one of the most typical ways of involvement of common people in judicial practices, is an important aspect of reforms carrying out in China's judicial system. Jury system, which first sprung up in England, had a close relationship with the social background, power structure, traditional culture at that time. On European continent, after the Age of Enlightenment, France and Germany introduced this trial mode and with much modification and reform, formed a trial system of assessors with its own characteristics of the Continental Law System. Most of the jury systems worldwide can be roughly classified as these two patterns. Although they may have different concepts, structures and features, they share similar values and functions. As for China, because of differences from the Western countries in power structure and traditional culture and lack of decentralization of power and democracy, mode similar to jury system did not come into being voluntarily.China's trial system of people's assessors formed and developed during a special period, which contributed to its special features and functions different from jury system in Continental Law System and Common Law System. In this dissertation, the arthor pays much attention to the questions as follows: What is the actual situation and real effect of China's trial system of people's assessors in judicial practices? What are the main differences between China's trial system of people's assessors and Western jury system and trial system of assessors? What causes these differences? What is the relationship between trail system of assessors and China's judicial reform? Taking these questions into consideration, the author has positively investigated China's contempotary trial system of people's assessors in its legislative concern and judicial practice and based on this careful investigation, comparison and analysis are made in this paper concerning the differences between China's trial system of people's assessors and jury system in Common Law System and the distinction between China's trial system of people's assessors and trial system of assessors in Continental Law System as well. From the comparison and contrast made, the author draws the conclusion that China's jury system has its own speciality which is expressed in inadequacy of assessors' selection and assessors' power exertion and similarity of assessors' management to judges' management, while at the same time China's trial system of people's assessors displays some new judicial functions. All these above tell us that jury system which is originated in western legal tradition has been transferred into a system with its strong Chinese characteristics under particular Chinese social background. Bearing in mind the speciality of China's jury system, the author tries to analyze the reasons from three angles: from macroscopic point of view, China's trail system of people's assessors bears a strong political coloring and its judicial function is largely ignored, therefore the application of this system at present day is not attached a due importance; from a medium point of view, according to Damaska's theory about the structure of judicial officialdom and with the comparison with the relationship between administration of justice and authority of state, the author points out that China's comparatively extreme hierarchia bureaucracy has its effect on China's judicial structure and pattern and limits the exertion of the function of jury system;from microscopic point of view, China's trail system of people's assessors doesn't show the values and functions expected by the legislators due to the limitation of related judicial system.In spite of these shortcomings, the author still firmly holds that trail system of people's assessors cannot be replaced as it is an important way to illustrate democracy in judicial practices. Because of the speciality of China's trail system of people's assessors, we should remember that it is impossible for China to change its system in a completely similar course to western practice owing to virturely different social condition and route, hence many respects should be modified and even some completely different ways should be adopted. When a existing system has grown into a new system for the reason of new functions and missions,how to evaluate it—from original principles or from its practices—is really a problem needing careful classification and analysis. After analyzing the judicial policies and judicial practices of China's trail system of people's assessors, the author believes that jury system has effective influence on China's judicial reform and China surely can benefit from the reform of this system although certain defects exist in China's present judicial system. In the last part of this paper, the author gives some suggestions to perfect China's present jury system: that is , to improve the selection of people's assessors; to establish a new system to ensure people's assessors to carry out their faculta jurisdictionis; to cancel the mode of fixed or professional jurors; to enact compulsory duty system; to perfect related supporting measures; and to put jury system into limited use after all the situations are improved.