Research On The Performance Appraisal Mechanism Of Judges In Grassroots Courts In China

This report of the 19 th National Congress Meeting of the Chinese Communist Party clearly states that "we should deepen the comprehensive reform of the judicial system,fully implement the judicial responsibility system,and strive to make people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case." From this perspective,to deepen the comprehensive reform of the judicial system will be the major deployment of judicial reform in the new era for a longer period of time following the 19 th National Congress Meeting.As an important part of the supporting mechanism of judicial reform,the judge performance appraisal mechanism is one of the judge professional guarantee measures,and its implementation helps to regulate the courts of justice as well as the judicial practices of judges and further promote the development of judges and the management of the judicial system.The two official documents Propositions on the Construction of Specialization and Professionalization and Standardization of Judges and Prosecutors issued by the General Office of the State Council in 2017 and The Fourth Five-year Reform Program of the People's Court(2014-2018)by the Supreme Court of Justice emphasize that the construction of judicial personnel relies on the well-established judge performance appraisal mechanism.On July 21,2016,the General Office of the CPC central committee and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the "provisions on the protection of the statutory duties judicial personnel,which stipulates that the professional qualifications and ethics are the primary assessment for judges.Afterwards,the Supreme Court formulated and issued a series of related documents such as the Implementation Measures of the People's Court for the Protection of Judicial Personnel to Perform Duties and the Guidance of the Supreme Court on the Evaluation of judges to further push the implementation of judge performance appraisal mechanism.It is required that the execution of judge performance appraisal in all levels of local courts nationwide be based on the documents issued by the Supreme Court and the departments of the central government and relate closely to the judicial reality and be proceeding scientifically and efficiently.The effective operation of the performance appraisal mechanism of judges in junior courts can guarantee the implementation of the judicial responsibility system and ensure the reasonable operation of judicial power.Meanwhile,it is also an important foundation to promote the construction of more regularization,specialization and professionalization of junior judges in all judicial levels in China.The performance appraisal mechanism of judges is expected to improve management and working efficiency in the court system and upgrade the abilities of judges by gaining knowledge of such aspects of individual judges as working capacities,professional levels,and ethic conditions.At present,the performance appraisal mechanism of judges in junior courts in China is becoming more and more standardized.A series of documents related to judicial reform coming into play in recent years have not only played an obvious guiding role in the performance appraisal of judges,but also served as an important index for all junior courts to refer to when carrying out the performance appraisal of judges.The performance appraisal mechanism for judges is a mechanism organized and carried out by the performance appraisal management organizations and related departments which conducts a comprehensive investigation and evaluation of the actual performance and professional ethics of various departments and individual judges and makes objective assessment results.The mechanism is targeted not only at selecting excellent judges,but also at ensuring the full play of the functions of judicial system and testing the working levels of judges to urge them to work diligently.It can function as both an important criterion for self-development and promotion and an effective means to optimize the overall efficiency of the courts.However,in judicial practice,based on the historical reality of the allocation of state power,the performance appraisal mechanism for judges in China bears a strong administrative color and the assessment mechanism formulated according to the regulations and practices of civil servants cannot fully reflect the attributes and requirements of justice.At the same time,due to insufficient understanding of the importance of court management,the practice of the performance appraisal mechanism for judges in China was still in its infancy stage,which leads to lots of problems existing in the performance appraisal mechanism for judges in China,especially in lower levels of the system.There are still different understandings and practices concerning the contents and goals,methods of implementing the mechanism,.In practice,there are also many problems and weak links,which cannot effectively adapt to the needs of judicial reform and the construction of judge professionalism.Taking the junior court of Y district of J city as an example,this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the performance appraisal mechanism of judges from the perspective of judges in junior courts.Based on the investigation of the general situation of the junior court in district Y,J city,the characteristics of the performance appraisal mechanism of judges in the junior court are summarized in such aspects as its assessment contents,criteria,subjects and means and consequences.The study suggests that there exist some problems in the performance assessment mechanism of judges in junior courts in terms of assessment positioning,assessment content,assessment methods,assessment indexes and application of assessment results.A series of measures are put forward to improve the performance appraisal mechanism of judges in the junior court so as to provide reference for the work of the junior courts nationwide.