Jurisprudential Analysis On The System Of Accountability To Judges For Misjudged Cases In China

The problem of misjudged case is becoming one of the hot issues in the field of justice in China.According to the recent years,cases such as Nie Shubin case,Zhao Zuohai case and She Xianglin case frequently exposured by the media,made the appeals of which demands to correct the misjudged cases and punish those judges higher and higher in society.How to ensure that the incidence of misjudged cases is reduced? How to investigate the judges' responsibilities for misjudged cases? They have become the issue that we must face.The system of accountability to judges for misjudged cases is an important part in the new round of judicial reform.According to the judicial practice and theoretical research,the system plays an important role on improving the cases' quality,preventing and controlling corrupt practices of judges,and maintaining social stability.The report of the 19 th National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out,“we will carry out comprehensive and integrated reform of the judicial system and enforce judicial accountability in all respects.”The theory and practice about accountability to judges for misjudged cases shows that,it is necessary to carry out the system of investigating judges for misjudged cases.However,due to the limitations of historical,political,economic and social factors,there are many deviations in the design and operation of the system in China.First,the construction of relevant legal systems about accountability to judges is seriously lagging behind,for which weakened the authority and its effectiveness,and broke down the unity of the legal system.Secondly,there is a lack of the corresponding procedure to investigate the judges' responsibility.The institution of the investigation of the misjudged' cases' accountability is also unreasonable.Furthermore,the concrete institution to investigate the responsibilities is unclear,which leads to the problem that the internal self-examination and self correction in the judicial system.It violated the principle of natural justice,making the system more difficult to be truly implemented.Thirdly,the index of the judge's fault and the result of the case is vague.It is difficult to distinguish the boundary between intentional and negligent mentality,slight negligence and serious negligence,serious and slight consequence.The informal quantifiable standard for sizing up misjudged cases,distorted the value and function of the design of the misjudged cases' system,which maybe cause new judicial errors.Finally,the measures of investigate judges' responsibilities,which were copied from the rules of the civil servant law,ignored the professional attributes of the judges.What's more,some courts added informal sanctions and overtook other responsibilities outside the law,which seriously damaged the rights of the judges.In order to amend the above deviation,to break through the dilemma and to make the ration be returned,first of all,we should improve the relevant legislation,formulate a unified law of responsibility of judges and misjudged cases' accountability,to clarify the subject,standard and procedure of the judges' accountability,and strengthen the legalization of the system and establish a complete legal norm system of other relevant laws and regulations.Secondly,we should rationally define the criteria for investigating the responsibility of misplaced cases,fully consider the subjective fault and objective factors of the judge,distinguish the legal facts and the objective facts,and shouldn't investigate the judges' responsibility according to the standard for whether the case is changed or returned to retrial.Thirdly,we need to set up the institutions and procedures of investigating the accountability of judges in a scientific way.We need to set up special responsibility identification institutions in the permanent institutions of the people's congresses above the provincial level,by dividing it in two departments,one of the two departments is in charge of the investigation and prosecution of the judges' responsibilities for the cases,and the other is responsible for judgment.The trial procedure should be in accordance with the requirements of procedural justice.We should fully respect the litigation rights of the accused judges.Finally,we should improve the judge's occupational security mechanism,by establishing and improving the judge's duty exemption system,and strengthening the economic and personal safeguards for judges.Only by constantly reforming and promoting the system of accountability to judges for misjudged cases,and realizing the dynamic balance between system operation and actual needs,can trial justice be more secure.