Theoretical And Empirical Study On Small Litigation

With the continuous development of social economies, the number of civil disputes is increasing and their types are diversified, which brings unprecedented pressure to the justice system. To deal with this issue, judicial reforms are performed in the global scale, characterized by the birth and rapid development of the small claims procedure. In China’s grassroots courts, the conflict between the increasing judicial demands and the scarce judicial resources is becoming intensified during recent years. To find a solution to this problem, China has learned the successful experience about the small claims procedure from the United States and other countries, which is first introduced in the new revised Civil Procedure Law in2012.There are five chapters in this thesis:I. The basic theories of the small claims procedure. This chapter describes the background, concepts and characteristics of the small claims procedure. The author compares the small claims procedure with simple procedure and quick ruling mechanism. This chapter explains the basic theories of the small claims procedure and its functions.II. A comparative study about the small claims procedure. This chapter focuses on the legislation and practice of the small claims procedure in the United States, the Great Britain, Japan and Taiwan. The author summaries these common points.III. The characteristics of the current legislation in China. This chapter describes the characteristics of China’s current small claims legislation and makes some comments on this topic.IV. Empirical analysis of the small claims procedure. This chapter deals with the problems and their possible causes in the practice of the small claims procedure, which are based on the investigation in several grassroots courts in Nanjing.V. Measures to improve China’s small claims procedure. The last part is the key part of this thesis. It makes some suggestions about a possibly better design of China’s small claims procedure, according to the reality of China and the experience of other countries.