An Empirical Study On Lay Participation In Criminal Trials

In order to implement the 3th and 4th plenary session of 18th CPC Central Committee's reform of the people's assessor system, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice jointly make the laws named "The Pilot Scheme for the Reform of People's Assessor System" (hereinafter referred to as the "Pilot Scheme") and "The Implementing Method of The Reform of People's Assessor System" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementing Method") and authorize 50 courts to carry out the pilot work in may 2015.These regulations revise people's assessors' hearing scope, selecting procedure and qualification, trial functions and powers, trial mechanism,etc. Since the implementation of "Pilot Scheme" for half a year, how is the work within the reform of the people's assessor system progressing? What positive effects have courts achieved since the reform? Which experience is worthy of promotion? What problems need to be solved? With these questions, the author makes a survey study on the execution of 4 pilot courts and 2 non pilot courts in the east and west, according to the first-hand materials, this paper analyses the present situation of the the people's assessor system in detail. Apart from introduction and conclusion, this paper includes 4 parts and 30, 000 words in sum.The first part introduces the basic information of the 6 samples and the research methods,such as practical study,questionnaire survey, telephone interviews, face-to-face interviews, access to files, data statistics, etc. The main research objects are judges, prosecutors, lawyers, people's assessors and social public.The second part is an empirical introduction of the pilot reform of the people's assessor system,involving the people's assessors' hearing scope in criminal field, the particular explanation of the juror's number,age,distribution of vocation,education,participation in cases cognizance of the people's juror,their management and so on.The third part describes the existent problems of the execution of the people's assessor system in the process of the pilot reform and analyses the reasons. The empirical study shows that:firstly, due to "litigation explosion" and lay assessors' low cost, the people's assessors excessively take part in the criminal trials so that weaken the effect of the system;secondly, because of the lack of publicity and the lagged information of household registration, there are many practical resistance in the selection of people's assessors at random; thirdly, because the legislation is rough,the division of the people's assessors' power is hard, and the number of the people's assessors in the collegiate bench is few, so the people's assessors remains in an awkward situation in trials.The fourth part puts forward the suggestions for the improvement of the reform of the people's assessor system. We should narrow the scope in the criminal trials and emphasize the effect of lay participation, strengthen the propaganda and reduce the qualification, promote the large collegiate bench, construct problem list system and regularize the procedure of the collegiate division, establish the information-based management system, improve the assessment of the people's assessor and so on.