Research On The People’s Assessor System

The people’s assessor system is an important system of judicial democracy in China. It has been more than 60 years since the people’s assessor system was explicitly stipulated in the 1954 Constitution. The development is tortuous, successively in 1975 Constitution to cancel, established again in 1978 Constitution, in 1982 Constitution again to cancel, until now still not to be established in the Constitution. In 2004 the National People’s Congress Standing Committee issued the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’ decision on improving the people’s assessor system, first established the system of people’s assessors in the form of law and made specific provisions. As can be seen, the development of the people’s assessor system although experienced setbacks, but the setback also proved the vitality and superiority of the system. However, we must also see the problems of people’s assessor system existing in the design and implementation process. We must have a clear understanding of the causes of these problems, and put forward the practical reform scheme, make the people’s assessor system perfect.The people assessor system’s vitality or the advantage of the system first reflects its democracy. The democracy of people’s assessor system refers to the people’s assessor system is not only a kind of legal system, is more of a political system, is an important system of the citizen’s participation in the administration of the state and judicial adjudication. Democracy decides people’s assessor system is not like other judicial system in pursuit of value. For example, people’s assessor system requires the people’s assessors must be extensive and representative, which is opposite to the pursuit of elite of the justice or judge. Secondly, reflects the restriction power. Judicial corruption is serious in China, which is relate to the judicial independence and individual quality of judge. The people’s assessor system due to its objective independence can make up for the adverse effects of the current judicial independence in some degree. At the same time, the people’s assessors in the trial of the case can make up for the defect of social knowledge and lack of experience of the judge in a certain extent, especially for recognizing the facts of the case, and can be formed in the during the trial the effective supervision to the judge, so as to prevent the generation of judicial corruption problem. Thirdly, reflects justice of the people’s assessor system. The people’s assessors have no interests to consider because they are random generated and temporary. Theirs neutrality can ensure fair case verdict. Finally, reflects the role of connecting the social life and jurisdiction. The jurisdiction is the force of the country, is a kind of public power, essentially dominates every aspect of social life. But in a society ruled by law, citizens is required to actively participate in the national judicial power, on the one hand, supervise, on the other hand, can guarantee the effective exercise. The people’s assessor system can be used to make the public a better understanding of the operation of judicial power, and bring the good values into the social life, such as justice, procedural justice etc. At the same time, the people’s assessor system can narrow the distance between citizens and the state judicial organs, bring the universal social value and idea into judicial activities, and then makes the judicial activities of reflect the free will of the people.The people’s assessor system has so many advantages that we can not simply abolish it just in order to avoid the its problems, on the contrary, facing the problems and finding the root of the problems, is the first choice to play the people’s assessor system function right. The people’s assessor system has many problems in practice, such as elitism and accompany without trial due to the adverse effects of the defects in system design and other social factors.Elitism firstly reflects in the qualifications of the assessors, such as general requirements for college education. To a certain extent, it constitutes a violation of the people’s assessor’s "democracy". Secondly, the professional training of people’s assessors exacerbated the adverse effects of the elitism. The existing people’s assessor training, in a larger sense implies culturing "judge" tendency, which constitutes a violation of people’s assessor " without understanding of law". Finally, long serving is also giving rise to the elitism. The serving term of 5 years of the people’s assessors by present regulations gives the people’s assessors possibility for becoming a “judge”, eventually leading to people’s assessors between "folksy" and "professional", with no clear function positioning.Accompany without trial is very serious in our country at present jury system. The first is accompany without trial before the trial, that is, people’s assessor lack a basic understanding of the case before the trial and lead to no initiative in the trial, or even slow down the trial efficiency. The second is accompany without trial in the process of trial. Because the assessors do not understand the case and comply with the authority of the judge, they don’t have any initiative, which is a fatal defect to both the find of the case and the function of the assessors. Finally is the review process in the trial without debate. The court is to form the corresponding verdict on the case by trial, although China’s law gives the people’s assessors find the facts of the case and the applicable legal rights, because of the ignorance of the law, the people’s assessors are often at a loss situation and only are dominated by judge, even issue no case verdict comment.In addition to the elitism and accompany without trial problems, our people’s assessors selection procedure and the decision of participation in the trial are mainly dominated by the courts, leading to the people’s assessor system lost its independence, and may even become the court’s vassal. In addition, our country regulate the cases range which the people’s assessor should participate, but in the actual implementation process exists the emergence of 100% jury rate. Although such a high rate of the jury can ensure democracy and justice of the case to a certain extent, but based on nowadays people’s assessors do not play a substantive role, the negative effects caused by the waste of judicial resources may be more worthy of attention.So many problems arising in the system of people’s assessor, only clearing the reason behind it is possible to carry out effective reform. First, the value orientation of people’s assessor system is wrong, including the influence of the whole social culture and the excessive pursuit of judicial elitism. The jury system is from western countries, which may not meet the culture in China. Chinese traditional culture emphasizes standing aloof from worldly success, preventing litigation and the official standard value, led the public often lack the enthusiasm to serve as a people’s assessor, negative perform their duties, causing problems such as accompany without trial. Judicial elitism is to protect our judicial organs to perform their duties effectively, but infect the implementation of the people’s assessor system intangibly. Elitism requirements conflict with "democracy" and "knowledge without law", more important, make the people’s assessors as "supernumerary judges ", becoming a vassal of the court. Secondly, function orientation of people’s assessors in our country is not realistic. The people’s jury pursuits popularity and folksy, emphasizing the ignorance of the law. However, China’s law stipulates that the people’s jury can decide on the case law application issues. The decision is too important to give the assessors " of the law who know nothing at all", which may damages our legal authority. Moreover, the people’s assessors think himself is not qualified to assume the responsibility. Once again, the people’s assessor personnel’s setting is unreasonable. The people’s assessors accounts for not less than 1/3 in the collegiate bench by the law. There are 1-2 people’s assessors in general. Due to the influence of the ideas and their lack of self-confidence, people’s assessors tend to judge in a weak position. The judge actually subjects in the collegiate bench trial process and judicial opinions. Finally, the design and operation of any system exists interest factors, the people’s jury system is no exception. There are benefits of interference factors making the people’s assessor dissimilated. On the one hand, the self-interest considerations could make the assessor as a job or a vassal of the judge, damaging the randomness and the independence of people’s assessors. On the other hand, the court’s interest considerations may make the people’s assessors as a mean to relieve the court’s pressure and become "supernumerary judge".After defining the problems and reasons in our people’s assessor system, the author puts forward his opinions about how to improve it, including confirming its constitutional status thus to obtain adequate attention and concern and lay the foundation for the future reform, and clearing its function orientation which means the assessors are responsible for the facts of the case, revising the relevant contents of the existing legal provisions such as cancelling the cultural degree requirements, as long as can talk and write can serve as a people’s assessor, eliminating the interference of interest factors, finally, through the theory education and practice education of the people’s assessor system, enhancing the enthusiasm and initiative of the citizens as a people’s assessor and approval of the independence and neutrality of the people’s assessor system.Reformation of any system is not built in a day. It not only needs the cooperation of various aspects, also needs time to get accepting of interested parties. The people’s assessor system reformation is the same. China’s judicial reformation is under way, so the implementation of the relevant new measures may encounter smaller resistance, but is still a long way to go.