Dilemma And Outlet: Investigation On The Current Situation Of Grassroots Courts In China Under The Background Of Judicial Reform

Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, from the overall perspective of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, the Party Central Committee has proposed and formed such a strategic layout, which is to complete the building of a moderately prosperous society in all respects, to deepen reform and opening up in an all-around way, to promote law-based governance of the country in an all-around way and to run the party with strict discipline in an all-around way. Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, has pointed out that we should let the people feel the fairness and justice in all judicial cases. People’s Court, as a judicial organ led by the Party, it must give priority to the construction of grass-roots courts in order to realize this goal. Most of the people have to file lawsuits in the grass-roots courts if they want to resolve problems and disputes between parties. After the Supreme People’s Court have re-divided the target amount for courts at all levels to have jurisdiction over civil cases, the share of civil cases first tried by the grass-roots courts in all the cases handled by courts of the country is increasing significantly. Therefore, a good resolution of the problems and disputes among grass-roots people is considered as the precondition and basis for the realization of social fairness and justice. It is of great practical significance for us to study the current predicament and existing problems in grass-roots courts. This paper intends to reveal the prevalent problems in grass-roots courts of the country through an investigation into a municipal grass-root court and then discusses the way to solve it.In the first part of this paper, it describes the aim,direction and move of judicial system reform. In the second part, it focuses on the analysis of such problems and difficulties existing in a grass-root court, including too many cases being handled by too few people, judicial management issues, function orientation for judicial committee, difficulties in servicing legal instruments and in handling people’s complaints against lawsuits, expressed in letters or visits. In the third part, it mainly discusses the ways to solve current predicament faced by grass-roots courts.