On The Reform Of China's Judicial Accountability System

Establishing and perfecting the judicial responsibility system is the "cow nose" of the judicial system reform.To perfect the system of judicial responsibility for the people's courts,the strict system of judicial accountability must be the core.Based on the judicial accountability reform in China as the research object,the paper takes the attitude of the existing system seriously,uses hermeneutic method mainly and empirical method complementarily to study the historical transformation,the basic rules and the basic logic of the system.Then the paper reveals the main predicament,provides feasible reference system model and path for the reform as well.Since the 1990 s,after the period of wrong case accountability and illegal trial accountability,the judicial accountability in our country keeps and absorbs some factors in the two periods,and goes towards lifelong accountability system of cases quality.Judges sre asked to be responsible for their behavior of trial,as well as the quality of the cases.What is more,the period of responsibility would be a lifetime.In general,the background of lifelong accountability system of cases quality can be summed up as follows: the trend of administration of justice is becoming increasingly,the judge team specialization and integrity construction needs to be broken,and it is urgent to rebuild judicial authority and enhance judicial credibility.The system wants to realize the elitism of judges,get rid of administration of justice,and realize the rule of law.It relies on the judicial responsibility system reform,takes lifelong accountability system as the command,matchs with safeguard mechanism of judge's authority,and includes two system of the illegal trial accountability and the wrong cases accountability.The current judicial accountability system in China uses the inertial logic,the additive logic and the inverted logic to guide the system design,make up the system loophole and pursue the system goal.The core rules include: firstly,baseline of accountability for behavior compatibility with results.A judge should be held liable for intentionally breaking the law of the court,and also for gross negligence that leads to wrong judgment and serious consequences.Secondly,the dual litigation structures of subjects setting.Laterally,the accountability subjects constitute the triangular structure of "plaintiff-judge-defendant".Vertically,the accountability subjects constitute the linear structure of "doctor-examiner-executor".Thirdly,the procedure of accountability under the guidance of homogeneous accountability.Although the review process of the judges' disciplinary committee has been added,it is still dominated by the court's common accountability procedure.Fourthly,the multi-form combination of accountability.The way for a judge to assume judicial responsibility includes administrative responsibility,criminal responsibility and civil liability under specific circumstances.Fifthly,lifelong responsibility.The judge is responsible for the quality of the cases for life within the scope of his duty.The supporting rules include: defining the duties and powers of judges through personnel classification management,promoting independent of trials through the reform of judicial power operation mechanism,improving professional treatment of judges through the separate sequence management of judges,and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of judges through the comprehensive safeguard mechanism.The core rules and supporting rules of current system build a systematic reform pattern.The present system of judicial accountability in China puts forward a new path for further standardizing judge's judicial behavior,improving the quality of cases,and strengthening judge's judicial responsibility and promoting judicial justice.However,the system faces many difficulties in the three dimensions of mode selection,system design and reform logic.In terms of mode selection,the system attempts to take the mode of accountability for wrong cases as a sub-type of the mode of accountability for illegal acts,but ignores the exclusion between the two modes,and does not reflect effectively on the inherent logic defects and potential negative effects of the mode of accountability for wrong cases.The basis of the system design has three deficiencies: legality,coherence and operability.Its imputation scheme is also unreasonable and has the characteristic of the typical transfer and apportionment.There is a strong sense of administration in the accountability procedure.Moreover,the guarantee mechanism of various functions and powers has not formed effective joint force,which makes the current system design unsatisfactory.On the logic of reform,the system has realized the importance of the basic logic of "power-interests-accountability",but due to excessive dependence on inertia logic,addition logic and reversed transmission logic,it does not grasp the connotation of the people's judicial philosophy,deal with the relationship between the correlation system,and clarify the order of the relevant measures.It is a systematic project to perfect our judicial accountability system.From the macro perspective,it is necessary to clarify the goal orientation of reform,which is aimed at achieving the unity of power and responsibility of judges,safeguarding judicial justice,and finally realizing the rule of law.We should adhere to the "three basic principles",which are advance strictly according to law,safeguarding judicial independence,and quasi-judicial proceedings.We should draw on relevant experience of relevant systems outside the region.In particular,draw on the definition of responsibility,the standardization of programming,the democratization of participation,the diversification of punishment mode,and the judicature of treatment mode.With central leadership and local coordination,systematic promotion is carried out in line with the sequence mode.From the medium level,we should abandon the mode of judging judge's judgment and knowledge,but choose accountability object to the misconduct of the judge;make "behavior-program" tacking the place of "results-entity",and gradually establish a behavior accountability mode.A judge shall bear the responsibility for illegal trial according to law only when he or she,in the exercise of judicial functions,intentionally commits a wrongful act contrary to the law or regulations,or commits a wrongful act contrary to the law or regulations by gross negligence,so that the impartiality of the judge in the exercise of his or her judicial functions is seriously questioned or the judicial authority is seriously impaired.This requires that the judge's misconduct be the core element,the result of the judgment is not used as the determining element,and the judge's violation of the law is the presumption basis for judging his subjective fault.What is more,whether judges follow the rules of evidence adjudication will be an important criterion for judging the legitimacy of their actions.From the micro level,the system framework needs to be improved and the system design should be refined to build the system basis of the top level governance,the dual independent accountability subject,the responsibility base of the behavior imputation,the accountability procedure of litigation and trial,and the professional level of accountability.In addition,the scientific guarantee mechanism for judges' performance is the foundation of the reform of the judicial accountability system.The reform of the judicial accountability system needs the synchronous perfection of the supporting mechanism.We should promote the reform of the internal organs of the court,optimize the supervision and administration of the trial and reform the system of the judicial committee to build an independent judicial space for judges.We should improve the system for selecting and training judges,promote the reform of the reasoning mechanism for judicial documents,and improve the internet mechanism for judicial documents so that judges will be able to judge independently.We should safeguard the judges' identity rights and interests by decoupling the judicial rank from the administrative rank substantively,establishing the security mechanism of the judicial tenure stability,and maintaining the safety and health of judges,;We should improve the salary level of judges properly and improve the fund guarantee system under the "provincial unified management" to ensure the salary and treatment of judges.We should also solve the problems of judges by clearly stipulating the exemption system,and its application scope and procedure.