On The Influence Of Judicial Ritual On The Authority Of Law

The authority of law is the prerequisite for the smooth implementation oflaw.There are many factors that affect the authority of law, judicial ritual is one ofthem. The construction of Chinese society under the rule of law cannot do withoutthe law of justice, efficiency and authority, however, China’s current socialatmosphere of respect for legal authority is not strong duing to many factors, whilethe contempt of the judicial ritual can hardly absolve oneself from the blame. Thejustice ritual which is called ‘the outfit of justice’ is not only an important carriershowing modern judicial culture and philosophy, but also a direct platform forpeople to perceive The authority of law. The judicial ritual, based on jurisdiction, isan organic system which consists of a series of material expression of the symbol,behavior and verbal symbol expressing legal spirit and value. The symbol thatexpresses symbolic significance includes: the symbol shows as material, such as thesolemn court buildings, orderly court space layout, symbolic national emblem, robe,gavel, etc; the symbol shows as some kind of behavior, such as the behavior thateveryone must stand up while the court hearing begins; the symbol shows in words,such as the using of legal language, etc. The application of those symbolic material,behavior and words makes the judicial process follow the modern judicial logic, thisrigorous program can not only help to shape the legal authority, but also let partiesin action feel and experience it.In this paper, we takes the basic theory of judicial ceremony as starting point,focus on the influence judicial ritual makes on the authority of law, on the basis ofthe theory elaboration, we are going to advance the progress and shortcomings whilejudicial ritual making an impact on the authority of law and analyze the causes.Finally, based on Chinese judicial practice，we will suggest that we must payattention to the judicial ritual in order to enhance the authority of law. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, the text is divided into fourparts.The first part starts with the basic theory of judicial ritual, expounds theconcept of ceremony, the relationship between ritual and judicial, the concept ofjudicial ritual, mainly discusses the component elements of judicial ritual and itssymbolic significance, including court building, layout, the national emblem, courtrobes and law hammer,etc.The second part discusses the relationship between the judicial ritual and theauthority of law. After a simple exposition of the concept of legal authority and itsdiversified sources, through the discussion of the relationship between ritual andauthority, we will draw out the key point of this part, which is the influence judicialritual makes on the authority of law. Judicial ritual affects the legal authority mainlythrough the following ways: judicial ritual help to establish the authority of law bycultivating people’s faith in the law; judicial ritual help to maintains the authority oflaw by promoting to solve social disputes; judicial ceremony help to consolidate theauthority of law of by enlightenment and discipline. In addition, this section alsouses a rudimentary knowledge of psychology to make a tentative description of thepsychological processes and mechanisms of how judicial ritual to shape the legalauthority.The third part shows the progress and the existing problems while judicial ritualmaking an impact on the authority of law through the analysis of special cases, thenanalyses the reason leading to this phenomenon: the adoption of Chinese traditionallaw as morality makes the judicial ritual applicability not high at the grass-roots; thejudges’ and the parties’ awareness to the relationship between judicial ritual and theauthority is not enough; the judicial idea of ‘value entity more than procedure’makes it difficult to fulfill judicial ritual.The fourth part suggests that we must pay attention to the judicial ritual in orderto enhance the authority of law, based on Chinese judicial practice, and we shall create a modern rule of law environment via the deconstruction of traditional legalculture; we should enhance people’s identity to judicial ritual through lawpopularizating education; we must strengthen the judicial culture construction basedon a long-term; we will improve the judges’ occupation quality to makes them paymore attention to judicial ritual, which can provide a possible choice to the goodworking of judicial ritual.