Research On Judicial Accountability System

On September 21th,2015,The Supreme People’s Court issued the Several Opinions on Improving the Judicial Accountability System for People’s Courts(hereinafter referred to as "Opinions"),clearly established the liabilities for illegal trials as the core of judicial responsibility system.The judge shall undertake liability for the performance of duties and take a sound lifelong responsibility for case-handling quality.Looking back into history of the judicial responsibility system in ancient,from"Unjust Verdict" to "misjudged case responsibility" and "illegal trial responsibility",Chinese judicial accountability system is constantly improving.Misjudged cases responsibility system was established for preventing miscarriages of justice,but itgradually revealed many shortcomings,such as interference in judicial independence and discourage the judges.Although district courts also formulated the detailed rules,the lack of unified standard makes the investigation for misjudged case mixed and disorderly.The Opinions established a unified system and defined judge liability as illegal trial responsibility.It covered judicial power operation mechanism,duties and powers of judges,definition of the trial accountability and support for judges’ performance of duties,lying out detailed provisions on the basis,the scope,the rules and the procedures of judicial accountability system.According to the principle of combining responsibility and security,the judicial accountability system included liability investigation and responsibility exempts.As the supervision mechanism,the illegal trial responsibility need a clear standard to evaluate judicial performance.Adhere to the principle of "parity of authority and responsibility",the scope of liability is based on the judges’ authority conferred by law.According to the provisions of the opinions,if a judge makes a the wrong judgment or a illegal trial,he should be responsible for his behavior.The subjective mentality and objective behavior jointly determine the degree of responsibility.In addition,the system of responsibility exemption should be established to cooperate with liability investigation.Throughout the foreign and international practice,the liability exemption of judges is relative,so the liability exemption of China should also be limited.So the liability investigation and responsibility exempts together constitute an effective and reasonable accountability mechanism,to balance judicial justice with judicial independence.