The Supreme Law of China is studying and formulating documents related to judges' punishment procedures
China News Service, Beijing, August 5 (Reporter Zhang Su) The "Supper People's Court Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Comprehensive Supporting Reform of the Judicial Accountability System" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which has been implemented since August 4, clearly stated that it must be "strict Investigate the responsibilities of illegal trials" and improve the disciplinary procedures for judges.
In December 2018, the Supreme Law issued a document to provide for the judicial supervision and management mechanism, punishment system, and supporting reform measures of the judicial responsibility system. This time, the Supreme Law once again proposed 28 reform measures centering on improving trial supervision and management, strengthening the prevention and control of clean government risks, etc., aiming to promote the formalization of various systems and form guidelines for the courts to fully implement the judicial responsibility system.
When answering questions about the "Opinions," Liu Zheng, deputy director of the Judicial Reform Office of the Supreme People's Court of China, and other relevant persons in charge said that the Supreme Law is studying and formulating documents related to judges' punishment procedures. The higher people’s courts should actively promote the establishment of judge disciplinary committees at the provincial level, cooperate in formulating judge disciplinary committee charters and disciplinary work rules, scientifically establish judge disciplinary work agencies, improve judge disciplinary work organizations and platforms, and formulate implementation rules.
Liu Zheng said that considering that there is a clear legal basis for the disciplinary inspection and supervision agency’s duty violation investigation system and the judge’s and prosecutor’s disciplinary system, the "Opinions" believe that the Judge’s Disciplinary Committee can provide review opinions from a professional perspective for the disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies’ reference.
After the reform of the judicial system was fully implemented, the court's case-handling model gradually shifted from judges' "single fight alone" to teamwork. The "Opinions" stipulate that the basic and intermediate people's courts should adapt to the needs of the division of complicated and simplified labor and specialized division of labor, and flexibly organize various types of trial teams.
In practice, in order to improve the efficiency of handling cases, some courts have refined professional trial classification standards, organized small litigation teams, credit card dispute teams, etc. As a result, the same type of cases can only be handled by a fixed collegiate panel or a single panel, and there is a risk of integrity . For this reason, the "Opinions" require that cases be divided randomly among different trial organizations as much as possible, and require a relatively fixed trial team to adjust personnel regularly.
This "Opinion" also reflects the characteristics of the times. In the selection and employment part of insisting on highlighting political standards, “focus on grasping specific performance at critical moments such as undertaking major cases, completing major tasks, participating in major struggles, and facing major challenges, and inspecting and identifying cadres through emergency and dangerous work such as epidemic prevention and control.” (Finish)