Third Plenary Session to Map out Judicial Reform

After 24 years, the Supreme People's Procuratorate reported its anti-corruption work to the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC) again on Oct. 22.

Analysts said this is a signal that the central leadership hopes to further the anti-corruption campaign through judicial reforms, in which the NPC plays a decisive role.

This Saturday, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee will be held in Beijing. A resolution on how to promote comprehensive reforms, including judicial reforms, is expected to be unveiled at the session.

A new round of judicial reform

On Oct. 8, 2012, the State Council Information Office issued a White Paper on China's judicial reform, saying that China had basically completed the round of judicial reform launched in 2008, as relevant laws have been amended and improved.

A month later, the report approved by the 18th National Congress of Communist Party of China pointed out that the country should continue to deepen reform of the judicial structure, improve the socialist judicial system with Chinese characteristics, and ensure that judicial and procuratorial bodies exercise their respective legal powers independently and impartially. This description has been seen as a central government initiative to launch a new round of judicial reform.

According to Song Yinghui, vice dean of Research Center for Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University, documents on the framework of judicial reform, but not the details, will be issued after the Third Plenary Session, to complete the requirements and tasks discussed at the session. Meanwhile, Vice Dean of the Law School of Nankai University, Hou Xinyi, said that all the important CPC resolutions have included reforms on judicial system since the report of the 15th National Congress of CPC in 1997 first mentioned "promoting judicial reforms". Although the description in the 18th CPC National Congress report did not change much compared with the previous ones, the repeated mention of "judicial reforms" makes us cautiously optimistic about reform, he said.

The Commission of Politics and Law of the CPC Central Committee, at its national meeting in January 2013, proposed judicial reform based on improving the socialist judicial system and focusing on issues of law enforcement and justice. The contents of judiciary reform have become apparent: Optimizing the distribution of judicial power, improving the procedural legal system, strengthening supervision and restriction of judicial power, expanding the channels for orderly participation by citizens in judicial activities and promoting judicial transparency in order to build a fair, efficient and authoritative socialist judiciary system to ensure the credibility of courts and procuratorates.

The Rule of Law Weekend reports that decision makers have started collecting opinions on a new round of judicial reforms after this year's two sessions of China's National People's Congress and Political Consultative Conference. The contents will be discussed at the Third Plenary Session of the 18th National Congress of the CPC.

According to Song, de-administration and delocalization are the two major problems in implementing judicial reforms to ensure that courts and procuratorates exercise their respective powers independently and impartially in accordance with the law.

Delocalization

On Oct. 28, the Supreme People's Court issued an opinion on implementing the constitutional principle that courts independently exercise jurisdiction, fighting against all kinds of local or department protectionism, barring interference of power, money and relations, gradually improving a mechanism that ensures courts independently and impartially exercise power in accordance with the law and upholding the dignity and authority of the constitution and laws.

Southern Metropolis Daily reports that Shen Deyong, deputy president of the Supreme People's Court, once wrote a report to the central leadership on the difficulties of courts exercising independent jurisdiction due to external interference and incorrectly judged cases. The central leadership has commented on this report and forwarded it to the Commission of Politics and Law of the CPC Central Committee, which then forwarded it to other judicial bodies.

To expand judicial reforms, delocalization of judicial powers is an urgent issue, said Song. Currently, management of courts personnel and finance is authorized by local governments, which can easily interfere in jurisdiction. "Cases with unjust, false or wrong charges are often due to pressure from local protectionism on the courts." Song said.

Song suggests that the provincial people's congress and its standing committees should appoint and remove presidents and judges of courts as well as chief procurators and procurators of procuratorates in the counties and prefecture-level cities. They should let the provincial fiscal organs control the financial operation of local courts and procuratorates. The personnel and fiscal power of courts and procuratorates at the provincial level should be guaranteed by the central government.

De-administration

Under the current administration system, court staff who are responsible for certain case have to get approval on how to handle cases from vice presidents and presidents of the courts who are in charge of administration and may not have comprehensive understanding of cases.

Judicial staff, especially those working in courts, are eager to see the establishment of a system which ensures that judicial functions and powers can be independently exercised.

Internal research in this field includes increasing the authority of judges and the collegial panel and promoting the classified administration of court staff. But the key to solving the problem is to reduce court and procuratorial administration from the judicial and procuratorial functions.

Song suggests separating judicial activities from administrative activities. Chief judges and chief prosecutors should be in charge of judicial activities, and be supervised by judicial and prosecution committees. Chief judges, chief prosecutors and the collegial panels should be responsible for the facts and evidence in cases; judges or the collegial panel should be in charge of general case applicable laws and criminal policies. Judicial and prosecution committees should be responsible for applicable laws and criminal policies of important and difficult cases.

He also suggests that administration of judicial staff should be different to public servants to ensure the former gets higher material treatment than the latter and guarantee the independent execution of their duties. State compensation should be separated from the judicial staff accountability system and transferred to special agencies.

According to Shen Kui, vice dean of the Law School of Peking University, judicial reform is a project which requires progress in several mechanisms at the same time, to separate judicial and prosecution powers.