The Research Of Small Claims Procedure

With the rapid development of social economy, most of the countries and regions in the world have enacted legislation on the small claims procedure in order to solve the contradiction between people’s growing awareness of legal rights and the limited judicial resources. China established the small claims procedure in the existing Civil Procedure Law in 2012. In 2015, the Supreme Court passed The Interpretation on the Application of Civil Procedure Law of People’s Republic of China, in which the small claims procedure, as a summary one, is put in an exclusive chapter explained by thirteen clauses. At present, the grass-root courts all over the country are actively utilizing small claims procedure to hear cases. Although certain efficiency was achieved in the implementation process, there still exists a variety of problems. The small claims procedure still should be optimized.In the perspective of implementation status and on the basis of analyses of basic concept of the procedure, the dissertation studies small claims procedure to specify that this procedure is suitable for simple civil cases with small litigation amount and certain dispute. The functions of this procedure are the decrease of the costs and the improvement of the litigation efficiency. Then, different legislations in extraterritorial regions and Chinese Taiwan are analyzed and contrasted to learn from the advanced legislation experience. Meanwhile, this dissertation makes a conclusion about implementation status and efficiency by investigating the grass-root courts and the current status of the small claims procedure proceedings in recent years. In its operational process, there are still lots of problems, such as on the legislative front, the small claims procedure is lack of specialized agencies, stipulations on procedural selection and conversion are not clear and the relief on the parties should be improved; and in judicial practice, the small claims procedure have problems on delivery, explanation and low judicial suitable rate.To optimize the small claims procedure, we should consider China’s reality and the implementation achievements of Primary Court and learn from the ripe experience from home and abroad. In the perfection of legislation, we should establish small claims court, simplify the procedures, make definite selection procedures and conversion regulations and improve the relief to parties. In improving judicial practice, we should flexibly change the delivery subject and way, strengthen exchanges between the judge and the parties, improve training of judges and encourage the parties intervene lawsuits individually. Only by considering and improving the legislative system and discussing and solving problems in judicial practice, can we better use this procedure to achieve real balance between equity and efficiency.