On Retaining And Abolishment Of System Of People's Assessors

System of people's assessors is a judicial system where the judicial organization invites ordinary citizen to participate in judicial activities. The system of assessors once played some roles in expansion of judicial democracy, consolidation of judicial supervision, realization of legal justice, and elimination of judicial corruption. However, with social development and progress, the system of assessor tends to decline slightly within a global scope, and today, it also envisages the fate of only an empty title existing in our country. The actionable value such as democracy, supervision and justice, etc. incorporated in this system has been therefore receiving serious challenge. Under such a background, a lot of disputes have arisen in jurisprudential circle and judicial practice circle on whether the system should be retained. This thesis tries to initiate discussion from introducing the system of assessors in foreign countries and the system of people's assessors in our country to analyze features and main existing issues of the system of people's assessors, thoroughly expounds the "Viewpoint of retaining" and Viewpoint of transplanting" concerning the system of people's assessors in our country, carries out theoretic evaluation on measures to improve the system of people's assessors, and concludes that the system of people's assessors should be abolished. The whole thesis is divided into four parts. Part I: Historic evolution of system of assessors abroad and system of people's assessors in our country. The system of assessors is a product of bourgeois revolution in the West, it is a system established against feudal judicial monopoly and for the purpose to overcome the judicial defects, which is sub-divided into the system of jury and system of participating in judgment. Substantially, the system of people's assessors in our country belongs to the system of participating judgment of the continental law system originated from the former Soviet Union, based on which it came out during the second domestic revolutionary war and passed the stages of initial confirmation, restoration and weakening. The system of assessors tends to be weakened in a global scope. Party II: Features and existing issues of the system of people's assessors. Concerning the features of the system of people's assessors, firstly, the application scope of the system itself is rather narrow, and it only applicable for the case of first instance, instead of the case of second instance and retrial case. Further, it has arbitrary nature in selection of assessors, and the court can make decision by itself; secondly, the few number of assessors will be involved in individual cases; thirdly, the assessors shall play an overall role in types and responsibility of assessors' cases, can act as assessors in criminal, civil and administrative cases, and express their assessment comments on fact and legal issues in the case. During judge's private sitting of collegial bench, they can follow the principle of democratic centralism to practice the doctrine of minority obeying majority; fourthly, the position of assessors is fixed in normal cases, taken mostly by the president of a course; fifthly, the comments of assessors are uncertain due to existence of the legislative rules and case trial system in our country. The existing issues of the system of people's assessors: firstly, "to participate but not to make judgment, to attend but not give the opinions", this is a phenomenon normally found, and the assessor becomes a "decoration article"; secondly, system of people's assessors has rich political color, the political initiative of its existence is far greater than the objective requirements of judicial activities, and further, there is no integral specification of laws in our country, and the system of assessors has not yet be systemized in a real sense; thirdly, the assessors' participation in judgment produces contradiction between the nature of the system of people's assessors and the function and resp...