| The contradiction of "too many cases and too few people" is a common problem worldwide,and the original operation of the judicial system has gradually failed to meet the needs of the trial.Many countries have carried out reforms in the organization of civil litigation,with a view to finding a suitable path in the reform,which not only protects the litigation rights of the parties,but also realizes the precise allocation and efficient use of trial resources.The current legislation is still based on the principle of collegiality and the exception of the sole rule,but practice has proved that such provisions are lagging behind and cannot adapt to the current state of judicial practice.The fundamental reason for this is the high degree of trust in collegiality,the lack of foresight in legislation,and the lack of timely adjustment to the development of society based on the stability of legislation.On the contrary,because of its unique advantages,the single-appointment system has been expanding in practice and has become one of the ways to solve the trial pressure under the dilemma of limited trial resources.The expanded application of the single-appointment system is mainly manifested in two aspects,one is the expansion of the scope of application of the single-appointment system,and the other is the assimilation of the single-appointment system in the collegial system.Against this background,the Supreme People’s Court issued a pilot implementation plan to explore the expanded application of the one-person system and to verify the feasibility of the one-person system through the pilot reform.This paper analyzes the current path of application of the sole proprietorship system based on the reasons for the pilot reform of the sole proprietorship system,and reforms and improves the sole proprietorship system in civil litigation in China in terms of the scope of application,procedural construction,protection of parties’ rights,and supervision mechanism.This paper is divided into four parts.The first part focuses on the current status of legislation and practice of the civil litigation sole proprietorship.Firstly,it introduces the development of the single-appointment system since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,and the relevant legislative provisions of the single-appointment system vary at different stages due to special historical reasons and social conditions.With the development of the economy and society,the number of cases increased,the awareness of civil rights increased,and the level of professionalism of judges improved,the application of the single-appointment system gradually expanded,and the legislation was revised and improved.Then,we analyze the current legislation on the single-judge system and its problems,including the narrow scope of application of the single-judge system,the simple interface between the summary procedure and the single-judge system,the unreasonable conversion of the trial organization,and the absence of the single-judge system in the second trial,as well as the current practice of the single-judge system,such as the arbitrary expansion of the application of the single-judge system and the lack of procedural protection rights of the parties.The second part is a rational consideration of the justification of the expanded application of the sole proprietorship.The first part analyzes the theoretical and practical values of the single-judge system.Under the single-judge system,the judges’ sense of responsibility and accountability are enhanced,and the quality of case adjudication is not lower than that of the collegial system with democratic decision-making.The application of the single-judge system is in line with the inherent requirements of the degree of difficulty of the case and the strength of the trial.In addition,we analyze the necessity of expanding the application of the single-judge system,mainly because the current legislation can hardly meet the needs of practice,and the shortcomings of the collegial system are gradually appearing,so the expansion of the scope of the single-judge trial is the only way to ease the trial burden and quickly resolve disputes.The expanded application of the single-appointment system is in line with the current needs of judicial trials in China,and the comprehensive reform of the judicial system also provides strong support for the expanded application of the single-appointment system.However,we cannot ignore the risks that may be caused by the expanded application of the Sole Arbiter system,one is the impact on the current concept of litigation,the impact on the procedural subjectivity of the parties and the neutrality of judges,the second is how to define the scope of application of the Sole Arbiter system,master its boundaries,to avoid the arbitrary expansion caused by the vague definition,the third is the most worrying problem,how to protect the lack of democratic decision-making in the form of case adjudication Third,the most worrisome issue is how to guarantee the correctness of decisions in the absence of democratic decision-making.Although there is a rationale for the expansion of the sole proprietorship,it is also necessary to face the risks it entails.The third section analyzes the specific situation of the current single-appointment reform pilot.It begins with an overview and commentary on the relevant policy documents and guiding programs of the reform pilot.The pilot program mainly puts forward two innovative points,namely,the single-appointment system for ordinary proceedings and the single-appointment system for second trial,and makes preliminary provisions on the scope of applicable cases,and gradually explores the reasonable scope of the expanded application of the single-appointment system.The overall situation of the pilot reform is good,the application rate has increased,the efficiency of the cases has increased,and there is a certain quality assurance,and the rate of appeal cases is kept at a reasonable and low level.The fourth part is about the analysis of the path to achieve the expanded application of the single-appointment system.Firstly,we introduce the German law and the common law systems with British and American law,and analyze the application of the foreign single-appointment system and the experience that can be learned from China.The first is to establish the basic principles of judicial impartiality,protection of the rights of the parties,and practicality,and the application of the sole proprietorship system should be a consistent guideline.In addition,the scope of the single-appointment system should be limited and expanded in an orderly manner,and the principle of the single-appointment system should be established in the single-appointment system in the first instance,and the single-appointment system should be appropriately introduced in the ordinary procedures of the basic courts and the first-instance procedures of the intermediate courts.Improve the conversion mechanism of the single-judge system and the collegial system,the protection of the litigation rights of the parties,the right to choose the procedure,the right to object,etc.;finally,the articulation of the supporting system,the selection of single-judge,strengthen the supervision of the judge’s trial,etc. |
