Small Claim Procedure

Since the adoption of opening and reforming policy, China has made great progress in economical development. In the meantime, with the enhancement of people's sense of law, the people's courts face great pressure of increasing amount of cases, and the conflicts between judicial pressures and people's needs for efficient judicial system become more and more harsh. One of the important reasons resulted in above-mentioned conflicts is the great amount of small claim cases. Those small claim cases that waste substantive judicial sources should have been solved quickly as long as we first optimize the civil suit procedures in China. Therefore, in order to make the best use of the already limited judicial sources, safeguard the involved people's right and enhance the degree of rule of law in China, the author thinks that it is necessary for China to establish our unique small claim litigation procedures based on the ongoing legal system in China and the helpful experiences of handling small claim cases in foreign countries.This thesis is composed of four chapters except for the introduction and conclusion. Chapter 1 focuses on the common theories about small claim litigation procedure, such as its concept, distinctive characteristics, backgrounds of establishment, jurisprudence basis, and the functions of values.Chapter 2 makes a survey on small claim litigation procedure in other relevant countries or regions, mainly about United States, Great Britain, Japanese and Taiwan.Chapter 3 makes rational comments on the current situation of small claim litigation procedure in China. This chapter includes two sections. The first section analyses the problems in applying simple civil suit procedure to adjudicate small claim cases; the second section discusses the problems in the practices of adjudications of small claim litigation. The section two also has two paragraphs, which discusses respectively the problems in applying traditional simple civil suit procedures to adjudicate small claim cases and the attempts of applying small claim litigation procedures in several districts' courts.Chapter 4 has two sections. The first section analyses briefly the necessity of establishing small claim litigation procedures in China; the second section emphasizes on how to establish small claim litigation procedures in China mainly from the perspectives of legislative pattern, scope of application, the characteristics of jurisdiction and the setup of specific procedures, which is also the keystone of this thesis.