Research On The Uniform Application Of Law In The Circuit Courts Of The Supreme People's Court

As an integral part of the Supreme People's Court(hereinafter referred to the Supreme Court),the circuit court of the Supreme People's Court(hereinafter referred to as the Circuit Court)has the function of unifying the application of law.There must be uncertainty in law,and there is a problem that the application of law is not uniform in all countries of the world.China's vast territory,complex geographical environment,regional differences make the supreme law have to face a more complex and severe environment in the application of uniform law.Before the establishment of the circuit court,the supreme law mainly relies on the judicial interpretation system and the case guidance system to unify the application of law.Although the two systems have achieved remarkable results in practice,they have their own limitations that are difficult to overcome.The limitations of judicial interpretation,such as uncertainty and legislation,cannot be overcome fundamentally,and the problems of insufficient number of guiding cases and low reference rate cannot be solved in the short term.With the transformation of the main social contradictions,all sectors of society put forward higher requirements for the fair justice of the court.The establishment of the circuit court makes it possible for the supreme law to create a new situation of uniform application of law.Different from the unified legal application function reserved by the Supreme Court department,the unified legal application function of the Circuit Court is mainly constructed by the scope of accepting cases of the Circuit Court,which is oriented to the circuit area and realized mainly through the trial of cases and the supervision and guidance of the local court of the circuit area.The Circuit Court is the internal organization of the Supreme Court,and the judgment and ruling of the Circuit Court is the judgment and ruling of the Supreme Court.In addition to the trial of cases,the special status of the Circuit Court allows its unified legal application function to go beyond the limitations of specific regions and specific cases.Rich supervision and guidance measures can break through the unified legal application function of the trial structure.The division of labor between the Circuit Court and the Supreme Court department is not only a function of diverting the case pressure of the Supreme Court department,but also a new "growth point" for the improvement of the existing uniform measures of law application of the Supreme Court.The Circuit Court has implemented a variety of institutionalized and non institutionalized measures to unify the law application of the circuit.All the measures can be divided into three categories.One is to ensure the unification of the application of the law of the Circuit Court.There are three kinds of measures in the Third Circuit Court(hereinafter referred to as the "Third Court"),which are the compulsory retrieval system of the cases and related cases,the meeting system of the presiding judge and the review system of the adjudication documents.The other is to promote the unification of the application of the law of the local courts in the circuit area.Direct supervision and guidance of the trial work of local courts,such measures mainly include holding trial work symposiums,holding legal applicable lectures,issuing typical case judgment opinions and document guidance,etc.;the third kind of measures directly face the main body of making decisions of local courts in the circuit District,such measures are mainly manifested in a variety of judge assistant selection exchange and training projects.For the cases heard by the Circuit Court,the three tour trial team shall,according to the requirements of the compulsory search system for similar cases and related cases,comprehensively search the judicial documents and cases of the Supreme Court in recent years on the main legal application issues involved in the case,and form the search report for the search results.When there may be disputes on the uniform application of the law,the collegial panel shall submit it to the presiding judge's meeting for discussion.The majority of the opinions of the meeting are suggestions,which have Advisory effect only,but such Advisory effect can have a de facto binding force on the collegial panel and the presiding judge.The case discussed at the presiding judge's meeting usually needs to be accompanied by a search report.After the case is adjudicated,the judgment documents of the Circuit Court should be supervised by the review system afterwards.For the cases heard by the local court of the circuit District,the three patrols set up a platform for the three patrols to communicate with the local court of the circuit district through the trial work forum.The purpose of the symposium is to strengthen supervision and guidance,unify the standards and standards of judgment,and improve the quality and efficiency of case handling.There are three core contents in the forum of the three rounds of inspection.One is to inform the three rounds of inspection and the trial of the cases in the tour area.The other is to discuss the specific issues in the judicial decisions put forward by the three rounds of inspection or the local courts.The third is to discuss the measures of the three rounds of inspection,the judicial interpretations or judicial policy documents formulated by the Supreme Court department,etc.It is a common measure of law application in every Circuit Court to hold the lecture of law application.The speaker of the lecture is not only the judges of Circuit Court and Supreme Court department,but also experts and scholars.The content of the lecture usually focuses on the controversial application of law in practice.As the main speaker,judges have "political authority" in the application of law in cases,and experts and scholars have "intellectual authority" when they are the main speaker.The issue of typical case judgment point of view and document guidance is directly oriented to the trial of specific types of cases,and typical cases will generally have a practical binding force on the circuit district court.In addition to the measures directly facing the trial of cases,each Circuit Court has implemented the judge assistant exchange training project.Among the three kinds of judge assistant exchange training projects implemented by the three patrols,the unified legal application function of the case training project is the most obvious,and the system design is more conducive to the play of the unified legal application function.The measures applied by the uniform law of the Circuit Court can not only play an independent role,but also play a role in combination.Although the basic system of the Circuit Court has become stable,there are still many unstable factors in the function and measures of uniform law application.First of all,the uniform law application measures of the Circuit Court have inherent limitations in the uniform scope and the uniform way.The uniform law application function with case trial as the core is difficult to supervise the cases of the first instance of the grass-roots courts.The Circuit Court could have expanded the scope of application of the uniform law through various means of supervision and guidance,but the Circuit Court only has a clear normative basis in the trial of cases,and the power of supervision and guidance of the Circuit Court is only the result of its interpretation from the position of the Circuit Court.Secondly,the measures of uniform application of law in the Circuit Court appear to be unsustainable.The shortage of judges resources in the Circuit Court has begun to appear.There are shortages in the chief judge and judge assistant.Under the tenure system of the Circuit Court,some measures are suspended along with the change of the chief judge and the leader of the court.In addition,after the establishment of the Circuit Court,there may be new problems in the application of law.After the division of the circuit District,the "judicial district" may be formed with the Circuit Court as the core,which may lead to the judicial decentralization.If we want to promote the function of uniform application of law of the Circuit Court to develop in depth in the future,we should first correct the function of supervision and guidance of the Circuit Court,and provide a clear system basis for it.After all kinds of concrete measures are put into effect,internal norms can be formed,which can not only standardize and perfect the construction and implementation of various concrete measures,but also maintain the continuity of measures.As for the shortage of presiding judges,the Supreme Court department has relieved the employment pressure by selecting a small number of local court judges to serve in the Circuit Court.Under the tenure system of the Circuit Court,the judges of the Supreme Court may rotate to the Circuit Court,and the appointment to the Circuit Court may change from encouragement to duty.As for the shortage of judge assistants,the Supreme Court still needs to establish a complete system to clarify the responsibilities of judge assistants,the organization and arrangement of projects,the treatment and guarantee of personnel,etc.