Research On The Reform Of Filing Registration System

Since the reform and opening up,historic achievements have been made in the legal construction of China.However,during this process,the case acceptance system of the court remains the filing review system.Specifically,the procedures,time limit,jurisdiction,and supervision mechanism under such case acceptance system have imposed a series of restrictions on filing a case.As a result,a large number of cases that meet the prosecution conditions cannot enter the proceedings,resulting in the phenomenon of “Difficulty in Filing a Case”,which has led to a series of practical issues in which disputes cannot be resolved and rights cannot be remedied.To solve the above problems,we must start from the reform of the filing system.The Decision of the CPC Central Committee on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Promoting the Rule of Law passed at the fourth Plenary Session of the 18 th CPC Central Committee proposed to “reform the case acceptance system of the court,and change the filing review system into the filing registration system”,thus formally raising the curtain of the filing registration system reform.The so-called filing registration system refers to a case filing system in which the court does not conduct a substantive review of the appellant’s action,but only checks the formal elements.Though the filing registration system reform has achieved remarkable results,a series of theoretical and practical problems haven’t been solved yet.The purpose of this paper is to find solutions to the above problems through a historical,systematic and empirical analysis,and provide intellectual support for the further improvement of the filing registration system.The “Filing” in the filing registration system does not involve the filing of criminal prosecution cases,but only refers to the trial filing of private prosecution cases(civil cases,administrative cases and criminal private prosecution cases).The filing registration system reform offers solutions to the problems such as selective justice,unfavorable protection of the litigation rights and obstruction in the judicial governance caused by excessive review by the original filing review system.The filing registration system greatly narrows down the review content at the filing stage,and fundamentally solves the aforementioned problems at different levels and straightens out the procedural framework of filing a lawsuit.The significance of the filing registration system reform is to avoid selective justice,protect human rights and justice for the people,and improve the social governance ability of justice.So far,theories related to the filing system mainly include the litigation right theory,the litigant theory,the litigation interest theory and value measurement theory.In the current filing registration system,first,the substantive review is gradually abandoned,reflecting the trend and value orientation of strengthening the protection of the litigant’s’ litigation right within a proper scope;second,the judgment of the suitability of the litigant is not required in the filing procedure according to the litigant theory;third,the review of the litigation interest and the intensity of review are flexible and not exclusive to certain filing modes;last,more considerations should be given to the value of justice rather than efficiency in terms of the interest measurement.The filing modes can be divided into four types: free mode,plaint mode,case mode,and justiciability mode.Each has its own advantages and disadvantages.The reform of the filing registration system is essentially a process of gradual evolution from the plaint mode to the case mode.From a historical perspective,the restrictions of the filing system on the litigant’s litigation right in feudal China was in an inverse proportion to the market vitality,which are reflected in the subject,content and time of the filing application.The Law Revision in the late Qing Dynasty directly introduced the advanced litigation system of the continental law system from Germany and Japan at that time,leading to the formation of a filing system in which the judge shall carry out a unified and two-stage review over the filing.However,such filing system didn’t achieve any ideal macroscopic practical effect due to its incompatibility with the local economic foundation.Later,the people’s justice system implemented after the founding of the People’s Republic of China was not sufficiently constructed.It was not until the introduction of the three major procedural laws after the reform and opening up that the filing system was basically determined.It met the litigation needs of the social subjects,but also caused the phenomenon of “Hard to File a Case” to some extent.Finally,since the reform of the filing registration system was proposed,the filing system has changed rapidly and opened a new historical situation.The regulations concerning the filing registration in the existing law of China have certain commonalities and differences in the system of civil litigation,administrative litigation and criminal private prosecution respectively.In the filing registration system,“filing” is based on the prosecution conditions/filing review.But in the filing review system,the “filing” mainly refers to the positive consequence of the filing review.That is,after the review,the prosecution is determined to meet the prosecution conditions,and then a case number is established and registered and the case is transferred to the business court for pre-trial processing.The filing in these two systems is not defined at the same level.In terms of the system structure,the filing review system is a linear structure of “prosecution-acceptance-trial” while the filing registration system aims to divide the prosecution and acceptance into two stages,and achieve the goal of registration in the prosecution stage.Through individual interviews,data retrieval and other empirical research methods,this paper found that the main objectives of the reform of the filing registration system have been basically achieved;the specific reform methods and implementation steps adopted by the courts of various regions have achieved remarkable results despite their differences.However,there were also some prominent problems in the filing registration system,such as the intensifying contradiction between the case and the legal staff,the inconsistency of filing standards,the difficulty in identifying malicious litigation,and the urgent need to improve the supporting system.To solve the existing theoretical and practical problems,the filing registration system is required to be further reformed and improved.First,we should continue to promote the transformation of the filing registration mode,make clear the review content at the filing stage,and accurately divide the responsibilities of each department before trial.Second,in terms of the system design,we should distinguish the filing review from the prosecution review,clarify the filing conditions of various cases and improve the implementation rules of the filing review.Third,in terms of the supporting systems,we should deepen the reform of the diversified dispute resolution system,improve the distribution mechanism of litigation cases,strengthen the governance of abusive litigation behavior,and focus on the law popularization in the filing registration.The application of information technology has exerted a comprehensive impact on the court filing work,which is mainly reflected in optimizing the working process,improving the quality and efficiency of case handling,and strengthening the trial management.The application of information technology will effectively solve the technical problems of judicial statistics and judicial management and greatly improve the efficiency and standardization of the judicial operation.So far,multiple information technologies have been adopted by the judicial organs in the implementation of the filing registration system.When applying the information technology in the filing stage,we should also pay attention to the tackling of relevant issues to ensure that they can have a positive impact on smoothly promoting the reform of the filing registration system.