China’s Competition-Style Judge Assessment System And Its Impact On Judge’s Behavior

Judge assessment does not only refer to the performance appraisal of judge’s trial work within the court,but a set of evaluation system implemented by multiple subjects and composed of multiple projects.Understanding the structural characteristics of multiple assessments,their relationship with each other,and analyzing their impact on judge’s behavior are the themes of this paper.Based on normative documents and combined with judicial practice,this article intends to categorize the multiple evaluation systems of judges,and on this basis,use costs and benefits as tools to make a more reasonable explanation of the deflection of judge’s behavior under the evaluation system.The first chapter mainly defines the scope of the judge’s evaluation system,introduces the system evolution and practice from the normative perspective,and summarizes the characteristics of the system under the macro and micro levels.Regarding regulations,the Party Central Committee,the legislature,and the Supreme People’s Court have formulated or issued numerous normative documents to assess judges.In practice,local courts concretize the requirements of regulatory documents.On the macro level,judges’ assessments are characterized by multiple assessments,multiple assessments,and unstable projects.At the micro level,on the one hand,there is an imbalance in the assessment indicators,which is specifically manifested as a preference for the quantitative assessment of trial work,and underestimation of the assessment of professional ethics,professional level,work ability,and trial style.On the other hand,the assessment project attaches importance to restrictive indicators and underestimates incentive indicators.The second chapter mainly studies the theoretical classification of the assessment system and the role of the assessment system in the influencing factors of judges’ behavior.On the one hand,this chapter divides the assessment system into two types,self-discipline and constraint,based on whether the assessment results are directly related to economic interests such as judge’s income and promotion.In terms of comparative law,there are many differences between the judge assessment system of the American state court system,which is the representative example of self-discipline assessment,and the judge assessment system of China,which is the representative example of constraint assessment,in the composition of the evaluation subject,the collection of evaluation information and the application of evaluation results.Constrained assessment includes two specific methods: standard and competition.China’s judge assessment system mainly adopts a competition-style assessment with strong constraints,which requires some basic elements in both horizontal and vertical levels.On the other hand,empirical research proves that judge’s behavior is affected by many factors including personal characteristics and external environment.This constrained assessment system runs through the entire process of judge’s behavior,linking the results of the evaluation with the judge’s income,promotion,and dismissal.It affects or even determines the costs and benefits of the judge’s behavior to a certain extent,and is the core part of the external environmental factors of judge’s behavior.Chapter Three analyzes the structural characteristics of China’s competition-style assessment system in detail.The competition-style assessment of judges in China is a system based on the group competition organized by the party and government departments and higher courts,with the assessment of leading cadres as the propeller to evaluate the judicial and non judicial work of judges.Ordinary judges become athletes driven by group competitions and leading cadres in competition-style assessment.First,the group competitions organized by the party and government departments and higher courts implement various methods such as ranking system,scale competition,and interest series to require the lower courts to complete certain goals.Second,the leading cadres of the court have dual identities.In group competitions and their individual assessment system,leading cadres become athletes in the competition.In the internal assessment of the court,leading cadres act as organizers and referees.Third,ordinary judges are athletes in group competitions.On the one hand,the internal assessment indicators of the courts often require judges to benchmark the city or province averages as the basis for judges’ evaluation.On the other hand,in terms of material incentives,the results of group competitions constitute the core component of judges’ personal bonuses,and there will be no gaps between members of the group;In terms of promotion,the specific basis for promotion is unclear due to multiple rounds of competitions under multiple assessments.This special method of restraint and encouragement connects leading cadres,the court and ordinary judges together:1.the upper and lower courts are connected in series.The assessment results of the lower courts are used as the basis for the assessment of the higher courts.2.The personal interests of the judges are connected with the results of the group competition.The results of group competitions affect and even determine the economic income of ordinary judges,and are also an important factor in whether leading cadres can be promoted.3.Trial work and non-trial work are connected in series.Due to the existence of the "one-vote veto",the assessment results of non-trial work may affect the assessment income brought to judges by the assessment of trial work.The fourth chapter analyzes the influence of the competition assessment system on judge’s behavior.As a rational economic man,judge’s behavior is restricted by the costs and benefits of a competition-style assessment system.Under the special effect of the evaluation system based on group competitions on costs and benefits,the judge’s trial behavior may break through the restrictions of procedural law and even substantive law and cause deflection.The specific manifestations are as follows: 1.The "failure" phenomenon appears in the procedural law.The relative stability of procedural regulations cannot adapt to group competition goals that may change at any time.The judge’s flexible approach to achieve the goal of the group competition results in the "failure" of legal procedures,which is specifically manifested in the weakening of the trial limit restraint,the strategic response of the case settlement time,and the rational choice of case settlement methods.2.Behavior choices under uncertain risks.Group competitions have expanded the influence of judges’ negative evaluation indicators.Since the matters involved in the negative evaluation indicators are not completely controllable by the judge,in order to minimize the risk of uncertainty caused by the quality of the work,the judge will take various methods such as answering questions after the judgment to let the parties settle the case and accept the judgment,resulting in the questioning of the judicial credibility.3.the impact of the series of competitions on the behavior of judges.Due to the cascade of judges’ trial work and non-trial work,leading cadres can control and determine the "one-vote veto" assessment items,allowing judges’ trial work to submit to the arrangements of leading cadres,causing judges to lose part of the procedural management power of the case,even the substantive judicial power.The interest tandem system damages the enthusiasm of judges in judicial work and may lead to the decline of judicial efficiency and quality.