On The Reconstruction Of China's People Jury System

Jury system is an important judicial system, which makes normalcitizens may take part in civil or criminal trails as non-professionaljudges. Jury system began in ancient Greece and Rome, and developed inEngland. The system was consummated in the United States, and reformedby Germany and France. In neoteric and modern society, jury system, asa democratic model in which normal citizen can directly take part injudicial activities, and a guarantee mechanism for human right, has beenhighly emphasized and confirmed by many states.Jury system provides special functions in guaranteeing judicialjustice, enhancing judicial democracy, completing judicial supervisionand protecting human rights. Deficiencies are also exposed during theimplement of the system, such as, it conflicts against the judicial efficiency, it's not the only way to accomplish the judicial just anddemocracy, the efficiency of the utility of citizen wisdom is to bereevaluated, etc..China's jury system, People Jury System (hereinafter PJS), cameoriginally from the USSR. The PJS has been found of many deficienciesduring its implement, such as, the application is random, the effect ofits implement is weak, the People Jurors are comparatively fixed, thePeople Jurors' authority is almost the same as the judges', etc.. Dueto the lack of research on PJS, the ignorance by the legislation, theincompletion of relative rules and the negative affection by the cultureand value principle, China's PJS actually hasn't play a role that it wasexpected to be.Recently, the jurists and the legal practitioners have discussed onthe abolishment or preservation of the PJS widely and deeply. There mainpoints are concluded: abolishing the PJS, reforming the PJS to theUS-pattern jury system, preserving-and-completing of PJS. The authorgives his point in this article: the first two points should not beaccepted because they are not sufficient and not complied of the realityof China. The third point, preserving-and-completing the PJS, is of greattheoretic and realistic meaning for the creation of China's trial pattern,its Judicial reform and the construction of its socialistic rule of law.The article is constructed of preface, conclusion and 3 chapters.In Chapter 1, the author reviews and introduces the source anddevelopment of western Jury system. By taking historic-research andinduction method, the author analyses and concludes the source of mindand the basic value orientation of jury system, which is, making the trialdue. Further, he concludes the basic value principle and faction orientation that jury system shall persist.Based on the conclusion of Chapter 1 and guided by the basic valueorientation of jury system, the author reviews China's PJS widely andprudently in Chapter 2. The author analyses PJS' main problems, whichare, the politicization of its value orientation, the lack of legal basis,the subjectivity of the selection of People Jurors, the unrationalizationof the authority enactment of the People Jurors, the Pharisaism of courseof the jury trial, the low efficiency of the jury trial, etc.In Chapter 3, the author discusses the reconstruction of China's jurysystem. First of all, the author points out that PJS shall not be abolishedbut should be persisted. Then the author expounds and proves 3 principlesof the reconstruction: renewing the conception, pursuing the just ofjudicial activities and applying the success parts of foreign systems onChina's realty. Based on the discussion on the 3 principles, the authorprovides his particular designations of the reconstruction.