The Reform And Perfection Of China's Judicial Expertise System

Nowadays, the society and technology change so quickly. It is difficult for judges to understand some cases clearly and also difficult for them to make accurate judgments. So they have to recur to and rely on expert appraisers' opinions and judicial appraisers' professional knowledge to investigate and understand the cases. In the proceedings, because judges and parties possess no professional knowledge about some special matters, it is hard for them to make material judgments about the appraisers' expert conclusion. Under this condition, the judicial appraisers have actually become "judges of the facts". Additionally, in judicial practices in our country, there are some phenomena, such as self scouting and appraising, self inspecting and appraising, self judging and appraising, uneven professional level of judicial appraisers, and low attendance frequency of judicial appraisers. And these phenomena have lead the parties' doubts about the credits of judicial appraisers and the expert conclusions made by judicial appraisers, which has seriously affected the judicial justice.The present problems in the judicial appraiser system in our country are neither because of the judicial appraiser system itself nor because the system doesn't fit the situation of our country. Seemingly, the present problems in the judicial appraiser system are caused by the localization and departmentalization of the judicial appraisers administration. Deeply, the present problems in the judicial appraiser system cannot be simply attributed to the imperfection of legislation of judicial appraiser system. The main cause is that the judicial system in our country has been influenced deeply by the strong authoritarianism theory of pre-Soviet Union for a long time. Although, the present three Litigation Laws in our country have made great changes in choice of litigation modes, they virtually still possess the character of strong authoritarianism theory. The concrete reflection in the judicial appraiser system is that there is neither reasonable division of judicial appraisement' s power, norrestrictions of judicial power, which leads to the serious neglect of the parties' litigious rights in the proceedings. The serious imbalance of litigation mechanism weakens the parties' litigious rights and under this circumstance, the expert conclusions given by appraisers usually become the super powerful evidence.The present problems in the judicial appraiser system have aroused people's deep thinking. What will the judicial appraiser system be in our country? To adopt the expert witness system that belongs to the Commom Law Legal Family or the appraiser system the Continental Law Legal Family? Scholars and judicial officials have discussed this endlessly for a long time. No matter which mode of judicial appraiser system is chosen in our country, in the transplanting and establishing process of the new system, we should emphasize much that the theory shall be combined with the fact and that the chosen legal family should be compatible with the situation of our country. Only in this way, could the appraiser system with Chinese characters be established in China.Decisions on judicial appraisement administration of Standing Committee of the National People s Congress (hereinafter referring to Decisions) issued on February 28, 2005 not only unifies the qualification and administration of appraisers and solves the disordered situation during the appraising process, but also clarifies the nature of judicial appraising and makes a new orientation of judicial appraisers. Based on the Decisions and the comparison researches about the foreign judicial appraiser systems, using the general theories of judicial appraiser system and combining the regulations in the Decisions, this essay first analyzes the present long-standing problems in the judicial appraiser system in our country, and then produces some opinions on the reformation and perfection of the judicial appraiser system in our country.There are three parts in the essay. This essay expatiates and demonstrates the author's opinions on the reformation and perfection of the judicial appraiser system in our country. Starting from the point of concepts of judicial appraiser in the two legal systems, the first part expatiates and analyzes the general theories of appraiser system. The second part sums up and analyzes the problems and present situation in thejudicial appraiser system in our country. In the third part, based on the comprehensive analysis and evaluation about the advantages and disadvantages of the expert witness system and the appraiser system, the author first makes a choice of the appraiser system mode adopted in our country and then based on principles of efficiency and justice, the author puts forward some assumptions about how to set up a judicial appraiser system that is applicable to the situation of our country. Combining the Decisions, the author puts forward some assumptions about the amelioration and perfection of the five aspects — qualification of judicial appraisers, commission rights of judicial appraisers, rights and obligations of judicial appraisers, legal responsibilities of judicial appraisers and contents and validity of the expert conclusions, by the methods of unifying conditions, commissions, administrations and formats.