Chinese Citizens Participate In Criminal Trial Research

In China,the major system for citizens to participate criminal trials is the system of lay judges which likes a social ritual,representing societies' ideology,system and belief in law and distinguishing the society from other societies.In coming days,we should maximize values of the system.It means that not only paying attention to participation's scope and number but also does improving the quality and depth.Thereby,citizens would play an important role in determining cases' facts because of their advantages in experience and professional knowledge.This paper investigates the current situation of the lay judges' system,analyses reasons for the inefficient performance of the system,and finds out the direction of the improvement of the system through three perspectives----system value,system axis and system goal.On the basis of comparative law,this paper makes a minimum distinction between question of fact and question of law,and puts forward the way to improve the lay judges' system.The paper is divided into four parts:The first part is the analysis about representative system of citizens' criminal participation in China.The standards to determine the degree of citizen's participation in trial judgment include the level of their getting case information,performance of trial and ability of distinguishingquestion of fact and law.Based on these factors,this paper investigates the reality of the lay judges' participation in a specific court,pointing out that the inefficient result caused by both subjective and objective items.The subjective is the gap between the reality and imagination of the lay assessors individually,objectives are lacking of the supporting protection mechanisms and the clear determination between question of fact and law.The second part is about the value,kernel and goal of citizens' criminal participation in China.Firstly,its value is to realizing the mass line,cultivating public reason in the judicature and promoting the reform of the criminal procedure system.Secondly,its kernel is still the judicial democracy which just should be replaced by the substantive one,making lay judges think independently,acquire enough cases' information and discuss with judges.Thirdly,its goal is judicial credibility.The system should exert judicial function rather than the political and safeguard the authority of judges and lay judges.The third part is investigating the foreign law which can enlighten ideas for citizens' criminal participation in China.This part introduces three kinds of typical systems of Taiwan of China,France and America.This part investigates foreign citizens' qualification,scope and powers for participating criminal trials,as well as the details of the adversary system and the considerations from professionals.In essence,the distinguish infacts and laws is equal to the allocation of judicial powers.We should refer to foreign laws and than decide our own minimum limits in facts and laws.The fourth part is about the improvement of citizens' criminal participation in China.we should specialize types of question of facts that lay judges need to judge and the content of jury instructions and the list of questions system.Besides,the paper claims that we must make the list of evidences,improve competitions of court trials,learn from cross-examination then improve court inquiry' degree in China and introduce the discretional evaluation of evidences.