Comparison Between Chinese And Foreign Jury Systems And Improvement To The People Assessor System Of China

The jury system has remained a subject of unfailing charm for Chinese and foreign legal research. More than being a fruit of victory in fighting for the political rights by bourgeois, the western jury system finds its utmost contribution in the judiciary field to embody such values as people's sovereignty, restriction in nation power, protection of citizens' individual rights and freedom, guarantee of due process and maintenance of judiciary justice, by which none of the legal scholars or practitioners would miss to get captivated. Nowadays, the jury system experiences various developments in western countries. Some have always been sticking to it as America while some other finally maintained it despite lots of changes as Britain and France. With study on the origin and development of western jury systems, the writer analyzes the current status of western jury system represented by that in Britain, America, France and Germany, and comments on the value and orientation of the jury system from the historical and contemporary views together with Chinese and foreign judiciary practices. With detailed comparison between the trial system and jury system and the different jury systems in China and America from points of view as the historical origin, legislation basis, practical running and actual effect, the thesis aims to take a review over the people assessor system of China. Due to failure in bringing into effect its due functional value in the past, the people assessor system of China once got involved in a severe dispute on the necessity of its existence among theoretical and practical fields. Since the promulgation and implementation of the "Notice on Improvement to the People Assessor System" by National People's Congress on 28^th Aug 2004, the jury system resumed to be a controversial subject attracting much attention. With stipulation in the conditions, qualifications, quota of people and running procedures, the Notice basically makes up for previous blankness in the legislation and helps to rationalize the people assessor system always being questioned. However, after deep analysis and study, it's found as there still lack adequate comprehension on the orientation and model of the people assessor system of China. The Notice in implementation also bears various unreasonableness and sees difficulty in bringing it into full effect due to its high theorization. There bounds to be a trend to get it further improved. The thesis focuses on detecting a best solution under the current legal framework and judiciary resources. As a country ruled by law is in need of high democracy, the people assessor system is also to meet the demand through various means such as adoption of "new selection for new case" with random process for the appointment procedure and broadest extension to the range of assessors with no restriction to their education level. However, the current judiciary system and people's quality would find it not so easy to match the high-level transformation. Therefore, it's inevitable to take a transitional path during the continuous improvement to the people assessor system, namely the transition from "what is the case" to "what ought to be the case". Based on this, the writer tries to propose a scheme to further rationalize the people assessor system and achieve more of its practical facilitation to the construction of democracy and legal system in our country.