Judicial Reform, Rational Thinking

After the proposal of the task of judicial system reform at the 16th CPC National Congress, China judicial reform is faced with the issue of its further development and expansion. A general survey of the initiation and development of China judicial reform shows that the reform stems from a number of functional drawbacks of our existing judicial system, the uppermost of which is the lack of judicial independence. From the deficiency flow a series of problems, such as judiciary localization, interference of administration into judicature, non -specialization of judiciary staff, non -neutralism and passiveness of judicature, inadequacy in the publicity, fairness and reliability of justice, and even the occurrence and spread of judiciary corruption. All these problems result in the loss of the defining properties of justice, such as fairness, independence, neutralism, passiveness, publicity, specialty and authority, the deviation of jurisdictional operation from the inherent requirements of justice, the low efficiency of justice and unfair judgment, and criticism and distrust against from society. To ensure that jurisdictional exertion accord with the intrinsic needs of justice, it is a must to break through the bondage of the present system and regulations, reform unreasonable regulation frame and system plan, re-configure jurisdiction according to the regularity of jurisdictional operation. Such is the internal cause of judicial reform in China. Meanwhile, the development of socialist market economy and the establishment of the principle of ruling the country by law call for a modern judicial system abreast of the time, which is the external reason at work. The judicial reform sets as its objective the establishment of an independent judicial system for the actualization of fairness and efficiency of justice.To this end, courts nationwide have been making constant innovative attempts sincethe 1980s, from the reform of judgment mode in the first phase (mid-1980s--the 15thCPC National Congress) to restructuring of internal system of court in the second phase(the 15th--16th CPC National Congress) and to the judicial system reform in the thirdphase (since the 16th CPC National Congress). The reformatory scale is becoming larger and larger. Furthermore, noticeable results can be seen in court procedure, the internal structure of court and the cape judges wear and the way the gavel is used. Progress is also embodied in the formation of such modern judicial concepts as justice of procedure, verity of law and efficiency awareness. Beyond doubt, the reform has exercised tremendous influence on people's courts. Nevertheless, problems during the reform, objectively speaking, shall not be ignored. China judicial reform is an exploration by local courts when the theory of judicial system is still deficient. It is a bottom-up and sporadic refonn where the scope and plan are self-determined. As a result, there are inevitably some problems in the way of the progress of the reform. Generally, the reform is earned out within thepresent frame due to its being localized, random and utility-oriented. While the bottleneck lies in the judicial system, that is, the existing system has to be innovated to free jurisdiction of other national powers. The goal of the judicial reform would not come true if there should not be a new judicial system based on judicial independence.In view of the situation of our country, the reformatory emphases for the next step shall be:1.Found an authoritative leading institution in charge of the overall layout, organization and coordination to avoid limitation, fickleness and utility.2.Strengthen the basic research of judicial reform and enhance its role of theoretical guidance to overcome blindness.3.Abolish impedient notions and systems against jurisdictional independence to realize the innovation in the judicial system:Eliminate the confused areas on jurisdictional independence to get rid of the ideological hindrance.Strengthen and improve the Party's leadership of the judicial work, perfect NPC's supervision...