Criminal Jurisdiction By Level System

The people courts in our country are divided into four-stage, namely grass-roots people court, intermediate people court, superior people court and supreme people court. The criminal grade jurisdiction system resolves the problems which stage court have jurisdiction over criminal cases. It is not only one of the most important systems in the jurisdiction system, but also the problem which must be resolved in the first place. There are five clauses in criminal procedure law which have provided the four-stage court's division on the jurisdiction over the first instance criminal cases, and the transformation of jurisdiction between the superior court and the subordinate court. Although these clauses have determined the framework of the jurisdiction system and can guarantee the criminal procedure develop smoothly, there are a lot of problems of the grade jurisdiction system in legislation and judicial practice since the criminal procedure law have been modified, such as the legislation language is too abstract, the regulations about the grade jurisdiction are not used by the superior people court and supreme people court, so it influences the function of the court, and it's useful to protect the rights of the parties. So, a lot of scholars propose amending opinions about the grade jurisdiction system in their legislative proposal. Although their suggestions are different, some pay more attention to reality of our country, some emphasize the future, they have a common ideal-"limit power", namely the grade jurisdiction is not only the authority division of courts but also relates to the realization of judicial justice. Therefore we should pay more attention to clear the authority assignment between the superior court and the subordinate court, the court and the procuratorate. So the paper probes into the concrete measures to perfect the grade jurisdiction, based on carefully analyzing current conditions of our country.The whole text is divided into three parts except the introduction and the concluding remarks:Part one is the general theory of the grade jurisdiction system. The paper puts forward the basic idea of designing and dividing the grade jurisdiction, namely balance between fairness and efficiency, based on introducing simply the concept of the grade jurisdiction and the affairs jurisdiction in western countries, and then points out many concrete factors which need to be considered: the orientation of courts' function, the burden of workload, the quality of judges, whether the procedure is simple and feasible, the property of the case, the penalty measurement, the social influence, the complexity and the particularity of the case. After that the author clarifies that it is important to construct a reasonable grade jurisdiction system for court, procuratorate and the parties.Part two introduces the affairs jurisdiction system of the main western countries. The author holds that the regulations of the court authority division on trialing are concrete and there are a lot of restrictions on the superior court's jurisdiction over the first instance cases in these countries, based on investigation the jurisdiction in England, America, Germany, France and Japan. The author hopes these regulations are useful to perfect the grade jurisdiction of our country.Part three concerns the practice of our country. The paper compares the two criminal procedure law, based on analysis on the current legislations, and points out that there are a lot of advantage of the present criminal procedure law. But there are many problems of our grade jurisdiction system: the function of the court is too complicated; the workload of the court is distributed unreasonably; the legal relief channel is not justice; the treatment to the foreigners and the Chinese is unfair; the lack of the effective participation of the parties; the legislative language is vague and the structure of the legal provisions is not reasonable.Part four puts forward some suggestions to perfect our grade jurisdiction system. Firstly, the paper thinks that first instance jurisdiction of the superior people court should be abolished, the reasons are as follows: it's not useful to give full play to the superior people court's function which guide and supervise the national trial work and ensure national law unified application; the way of seeking legal remedy by the parities was interrupted; it's not in accordance with the judicial practice of our country. Secondly, perfects the jurisdiction of the intermediate people court. Thirdly, explains the reasons in detail. Then, as for as the first instance jurisdiction of the intermediate court, the author puts forward some perfected suggestions according to the twentieth term of the current criminal procedure law. At last, reforms the system of the transferable jurisdiction, establishes the system of the challenge of jurisdiction and the system of the connected jurisdiction. The author holds that the transferable jurisdiction embodies the rule of the unification of the principle nature and the flexibility, but the available regulations are comparatively abstract. The legislation should adopt the enumerated way to clear the cases of the transferable jurisdiction. There is no regulation of the connected jurisdiction in the criminal procedure law. It's necessary to stipulate the connected jurisdiction explicitly in the criminal procedure law, and define the situations which show the connected jurisdiction between the cases.