Research On The Distinction Mechanism Between Factual And Legal Issues In The Seven-Member Collegial Panel In Our Country

An important goal of China’s reform of the people’s jury system is to distinguish between "factual issues" and "legal issues",and to eliminate the drawbacks of "accompanying but not reviewing" brought about by the "same job and same power" between the people’s jurors and judges under the past criminal litigation system,through strengthening the substantial participation of people’s jurors.Since the reform is still in its initial stage,there are many theoretical gaps in how to achieve the distinction between "factual issues" and "legal issues",and there is a lack of corresponding procedural mechanisms to ensure the substantial participation of people’s jurors in the practice.However,this system has been implemented for hundreds of years in foreign litigation systems and has accumulated rich experience in distinguishing between factual and legal issues.Although the practice and research in foreign countries have long shown that it is not realistic to distinguish between "factual issues" and "legal issues" in theory,it is feasible to maximize the role of people’s jurors and ensure the effectiveness of the jury system in criminal litigation by formulating a series of functional standards to distinguish the facts of the case from a pragmatic perspective.By analyzing the shortcomings of the past single-path differentiation and drawing on mature experiences from outside the domain,a compromise can be made by adopting a path that combines narrow-range standards with pragmatic functional standards.Based on the consideration of both basic theoretical definitions and individual case practices,the "fact problem" and "legal problem" theoretical differentiation mechanism can be combined with China’s judicial practice through program mechanisms,to truly implement the participatory role of the people’s jurors in criminal trials.Finally,in order to cooperate with the implementation of the differentiation mechanism and effectively solve the problem of "accompanying but not reviewing" in the criminal litigation process,efforts should be made from three aspects: the jurors’ reading mechanism,substantive connection of court proceedings,and jurors’ evaluation rules,to build a corresponding supporting guarantee system to maximize the effectiveness of the reform and achieve the original intention of the reform of the system of people’s jurors.