The Study Of The ADR Mechanism Attached To The Courts In China

The civil pretrial procedure plays a very important role in civil trials in China.The justice and efficiency of civil trials are directly affected by whether the pretrial procedure structure is well structured and smoothly conducted.Western countries learn from each other and influence each other in terms of operation modes of the civil pretrial procedure,showing a tendency of convergence.Their common development trend is changed from prioritizing court hearing to attaching equal importance to pre-trial preparation and adjudication.Against the backdrop that countries all around the world are reforming their civil pretrial procedure one after another,China should also pay attention to such procedure and put on its agenda the reconstruction of such procedure.This paper studies the civil pretrial procedure from the perspective of court-annexed ADR and discusses it from three major aspects.The first part illuminates general theories of civil pretrial procedure and court-annexed ADR,including the definition and functions of civil pretrial procedure and the definition and features of court-annexed ADR.It analyzes the relation between civil pretrial procedure and court-annexed ADR,including the connection and complementarity between them,based on a clear understanding of their basic concepts.After that,it makes a country-based investigation of court-annexed ADR systems of UK,US,Germany and Japan,based on which analysis and comparison will be made from such aspects as the background and conditions of creation,development trends,etc.for evaluation and analysis purposes.The second part systematically discusses current status and reform background of the existing civil dispute settlement mechanism of China,including the regulations and provisions on civil pretrial procedure and court-annexed ADR in China's current legislation.It collates and summarizes defects and deficiencies of the current civil dispute settlement mechanism,thus laying a foundation for putting forward amendment suggestions in the following part of the paper.After that,it analyzes the feasibility of reforming the court-annexed ADR mechanism by examining the political environment,value orientation,cultural traditions,and the recent changes in courts'concepts about settling various kinds of disputes in practice.This part also elaborates the most important objective condition for court-annexed ADR mechanism reform in China,namely,China has the human resources for constructing the court-annexed ADR mechanism,providing the cornerstone for reforming court-annexed ADR mechanism.Based on previous analysis,the third part of the paper proposes legislative suggestions on the reform and reconstruction of China's civil pretrial procedure from both theoretical and practical perspectives.It firstly establishes the concepts which should be followed in the construction of court-annexed ADR system of China.On this basis,it puts forward specific reform measures,including sound court-annexed ADR legislation and relevant supporting mechanisms,so as to ensure the smooth implementation of ADR in China.