An Empirical Study On Treating Like Cases Alike

“Treating like cases alike” is a major jurisprudential proposition that echoes the ultimate value of the law of justice.In the era of China's judicial reform,an research on “treating like cases alike” is of great significance to promote the construction of rule of law in China.The current research on “treating like cases alike” is mainly based on the value function within the framework of law philosophy.Generally speaking,it belongs to the metaphysical research approach.Although this method helps to deepen the theoretical understanding,there are some disadvantages,and it is gradually falling into the dispute of moral obligation or legal obligation.Not only is it unable to describe “treating like cases alike” in judicial practice,but it also greatly weakens the theoretical value of “treating like cases alike”.“treating like cases alike” has profound theoretical implications and extremely rich connotations,so a reasonable path must be determined for empirical testing.The strategy is adopted to split the “same case” into multiple testable and measurable single concepts,forming many dimensions of the same fact to be tested.Synthesizing the legal reasons stipulated in the judicial interpretation,the reasons of the judgment in judicial practice and the existing theoretical research results,independent variables are determined.First,by random sampling,a case base composed of 1,680 valid cases was established on the premise of ensuring the authenticity and representativeness of the sample data.Secondly,“Treating like cases alike” is tested on multi-dimensions by descriptive statistics.Empirical studies have found that“Treating like cases alike” can be established in most of observation dimensions.Third,differences are the essential existence of society,and discovering and clarifying differences is the purpose of research.So,we continue to conduct empirical research on the mechanism of the difference,and quantify the specific degree of the difference.Next,we discuss the policy enlightenment and theoretical significance of the empirical research findings.The policy significance is that the degree of “treating like cases alike” can be further improved by reconstructing the nature and main principles,and amount discretionary system of pain-and-suffering rewards.The theoretical significance lies in the fact that empirical research findings respond to the current theoretical controversy,and at the same time enrich and develop “treating like cases alike”.Finally,I also try to explore the reasons for the establishment of “treating like cases alike” from the perspective of institutionalism.The study found that there was no significant difference in items such as the victim's age,gender,compensation standard,whether a lawyer is hired,the defendant's responsibility,and the defendant's ability to compensate.In other words,“treating like cases alike” can be established in these dimensions of observation.At the same time,however,regional differences exist,and the degree of the differences is basically consistent with the differences between the total national economy and the disposable income of residents in various provinces.It can be said that the pain-and-suffering rewards in the same province have achieved,but there are certain regional differences across the country.Pain-and-suffering rewards are extremely sensitive to the level of disability,and there are significant differences in different levels of disability.But this kind of difference is a kind of reasonable existence.It is also found that the disability compensation has a certain positive anchoring effect on pain-and-suffering rewards.If the plaintiff receives a higher disability compensation,he(she)is likely to receive more Pain-and-suffering rewards.These findings reflect the embarrassing situation of judges when deciding on the amount.The nature of mental suffering cannot be directly measured.The relevant laws and regulations of our country only stipulate six "discretionary" factors that should be considered.On the other hand,judicial reforms have adopted uniform legal application standards and other system designs,which constantly require “treating like cases alike” in order to achieve fairness and justice.Judges in the dilemma resort to authoritative documents from third-party agencies,and use the severity of physical injury as an effective alternative to assess mental damage,so as to maintain the consistency of the judgment as objectively as possible.These research findings strongly support the legal principle of “treating like cases alike”,showing that“treating like cases alike” has the realistic possibility of being established in judicial practice,respond to various "skeptics" of“treating like cases alike”,and defend the legal principle.Facts make differences.Differences do exist,but the key lies in how to treat differences? The correct position is to look at the differences from principle.It is a single linear thinking that he current theoretical disputes and even doubts about“treating like cases alike”.Either only adhere to the legal principle and stop at the difference of facts,or give up the adherence to the legal principle because of the focus on the difference of facts.Treating the difference of facts from the standpoint of legal principles both adhere to the legal principles and face up to the differences of facts and develop the theory.As far as the empirical test results are concerned,these differences did not have a substantial and significant impact on the test,which shows that “treating like cases alike” is still a legal principle worth maintaining.These differences have not only failed to shake the foundation of “treating like cases alike”,but enrich and develop theory.“Treating like cases alike” does not exclude the factual differences of the individual cases,but it can dissolve the differences.For cases with the same legal facts,as long as there is no significant difference in the results of the judgment,the principle of “treating like cases alike” can be established in judicial practice.We can neither turn a blind eye to differences in facts because of the value recognition,nor deny the important legal principle because of the differences in facts.Instead,we should always look at the differences in facts from a principled standpoint.Only in this way can the tension between theory and practice be coordinated,and various disputes and even doubts can be effectively responded.Empirical research has shown that“treating like cases alike” does have a realistic possibility of being established in judicial practice.What is the reason? First of all,the moral value implied in “treating like cases alike” provides a justification of justice.The more direct and important reason is that “treating like cases alike” has been widely regulated by the systems.At present,important programmatic legal documents have been established with fairness and justice.Guiding case system,category case retrieval system,unified law application standard system and other system systems established by a large number of judicial documents contain positive prosperous judicial concept,and greatly reduces the discretionary space of judges in the trial of similar cases.The joint efforts of the system continue to shape and maintain “treating like cases alike”.