Research On The Application And Improvement Of The Sole Judge System Of The First Instance Civil Ordinary Procedure

The system of independent ordinary procedure of first instance refers to a system that the basic courts use the system of independent ordinary procedure to try cases in civil proceedings.In recent years,the system has gradually become active in the public eye due to the reform of the independent system.As early as more than 10 years ago,some scholars found that the legislation of the independent system was no longer enough to deal with the dilemma of fewer cases in judicial practice,and called for reform.Finally,in 2020,China carried out the pilot reform of simple and simple diversion of civil litigation.The expansion of the application scope of the independent system to ordinary procedures is undoubtedly one of the highlights of the reform.The pilot district courts carried out the reform in full swing.At the end of 2021,on the basis of summarizing the pilot experience of the past two years,the Civil Procedure Law was revised for the fourth time,and the system of independent ordinary procedure of first instance was formally established in the legislation.The purpose of its establishment is to relieve the pressure of individual cases of grassroots courts and optimize the allocation of judicial resources on the premise of not compromising the quality of trials.It is beneficial to improve litigation efficiency,save trial resources and promote judicial justice.It has been a year since the legislation of the system of independent ordinary procedure of first instance was enacted.Through sorting out and analyzing the cases of the system of independent ordinary procedure of first instance in local courts in 2022,the following conclusions are drawn.First,no matter during the pilot period or after the legislation,the application of the system of independent ordinary procedure of first instance has a large regional development difference and a small number of judicial organization conversion.Secondly,the application during the pilot period was generally good,with only a few areas having a low application rate due to regional development.Thirdly,the application of the pilot court after the legislation is much better than that of the other non-pilot courts,and the application rate of the non-pilot courts is generally low.This shows that the experience during the pilot period is conducive to the development of the independent system of ordinary procedures of first instance,while the non-pilot areas are still in the exploratory stage,and it remains to be seen what will happen in the future.Specifically,there are three problems in the application of the system in judicial practice.First,The scope of application is not clear,which leads to the wrong application in practice.Secondly,there are problems in the transformation of judicial organization.To begin with,the reason for conversion is not clear;Second,the lack of conversion mechanism,the lack of a complete set of standard conversion process;Third,the conversion path is single,legislation only provides for the conversion of the independent system to the collegial system,but in practice its reverse conversion path has the necessity of existence.Finally,the litigant’s litigation rights are insufficient.First,the right to know is limited,the court does not inform the parties in advance of the application of the system,which leads to the parties think that their rights and interests are damaged;Second,the objection right is limited.In practice,the court’s examination of the objection of the parties is not standard,which is not conducive to the protection of the litigant’s litigation rights and interests.System reform is a long-term project,the reform of our independent system is still at a primary stage,while many foreign countries began to explore the way of reform of independent system as early as in the last century,and now a relatively complete system has been formed.So it is necessary to learn from some overseas experiences and put forward some suggestions according to our national conditions and practice.First,we need to improve applicable standards.First,according to different types of cases to distinguish different applicable standards,from the theoretical refinement;The second is to refine the negative list of the system based on practice.Secondly,improve the conversion system.The first is to standardize the process of judicial organization conversion,from the clear start of the subject,conversion reasons and approval procedures to improve the three aspects;The second is to increase the collegiate system to the independent system of the way.Furthermore,the protection of litigant’s litigation rights should be strengthened.From the right to know,the right to dissent,the right to choose three aspects to improve the system.Finally,improve the appropriate supporting mechanism.First,to strengthen trial supervision and management,local courts should strengthen and refine the supervision of the first instance ordinary procedure alone system;Second,improve the selection and appointment of sole judges,select judges of different experience levels according to the types of cases,and strengthen the professional training of sole judges;Third,the system of trial period and litigation costs should be improved.The extension of trial period should be strictly examined and approved,and litigation costs can be properly adjusted according to the local economic base.