What are the main problems in the current judicial system in China?

First, the jurisdiction of the current judicial organs in China completely coincides with the management areas of local party committees, local power organs and local administrative organs, thus strengthening the localization of judicial power. China is a unitary country, so there should be only a unified national judicial system, and judicial organs at all levels should exercise national judicial power in a unified and complete way. Only in this way can we maintain the unity of national legal system and judicial power. However, under the current system, the unified judicial power is divided by local party committees, local power organs and local administrative regions, and local judicial organs at all levels have evolved into "local" judicial organs. In addition, under the current system, the personnel and property of local judicial organs depend on and are dominated by local authorities. Obviously, asking the judiciary to exercise judicial power independently and fairly and to safeguard the unity and effective implementation of the national legal system is tantamount to seeking fish from a tree.

Second, the supervision mechanism in the judicial system is weak, which makes it impossible for the judicial organs to correct all kinds of lax law enforcement and judicial corruption through their own supervision mechanism. At present, the supervision in China's judicial system mainly includes procuratorial supervision by procuratorial organs to judicial organs and trial-level supervision by higher judicial organs to lower judicial organs. As far as procuratorial supervision is concerned, the people's procuratorate, as the legal supervision organ of our country, has the right to supervise the legality of the judicial activities of the state judicial organs according to the provisions of the Constitution and laws of our country. However, in practice, the authority and effectiveness of procuratorial supervision have never been truly established and realized. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects: First, the intensity of procuratorial supervision has softened, and the procuratorial organs' awareness of law enforcement supervision and supervision behavior have encountered various obstacles due to various factors. Some procuratorial organs believe that the current legal system is not perfect and the means of supervision are not complete, which makes it difficult to carry out procuratorial supervision. Even if the judicial activities are supervised, not only the judicial organs do not understand it, but some party and government organs and leaders also misunderstand it. Because they are thankless, it is better not to supervise; Secondly, judging from the current laws in China, the supervision of the procuratorial organs over judicial acts is only a kind of post supervision. In practice, when the procuratorial organ finds that the judicial act of the judicial organ is illegal, it can only ask the judicial organ to correct it in the form of protest. If the judiciary refuses to correct it, the procuratorial organ can do nothing. In the long run, it will seriously damage the authority and effectiveness of procuratorial supervision; Third, procuratorial organs are also judicial organs. China's current law only stipulates that procuratorial organs have the right to supervise other judicial organs. As for how to supervise the procuratorial power of procuratorial organs, there are no other clear provisions except the "work" supervision of state power organs, which facilitates the abuse of power by procuratorial organs. As far as trial-level supervision is concerned, according to the provisions of the Constitution and laws, the higher judicial organs have the right to exercise trial-level supervision over the judicial acts of the lower judicial organs. In practice, the higher judicial organs effectively corrected the illegal acts of the lower judicial organs through trial-level supervision. However, trial-level supervision is the internal supervision of judicial organs. Due to the implementation of the system of second instance and final adjudication in China, the judicial behavior of judicial organs is troubled by local protectionism. In some places, the focus of trial-level supervision by higher judicial organs over lower judicial organs is no longer the unification of the legal system and the effective implementation of national laws, but whether local interests are fully protected.

Third, it is quite common to ignore the procedure and the judicial organs do not abide by the procedural constraints. Different from the legal concept of "procedural priority" pursued by western society, China has a legal tradition of attaching importance to entities and neglecting procedures, and often regards legal procedures as purely formalistic things, even as formalism, or as being bound by hands. From 65438 to 0979, China successively promulgated the Criminal Procedure Law, the Civil Procedure Law and the Administrative Procedure Law. However, due to the influence of China's legal tradition of emphasizing procedure, there is a strong national departmentalism in these procedural laws. For example, the judicial organs that exercise judicial power on behalf of the state in various lawsuits always occupy an absolute dominant position; The status of the prosecution and the defense in criminal proceedings is not equal, and the prosecution's evidence has absolute effect; Various procedural norms are hard norms for parties and other participants in litigation, but they are soft constraints for judicial organs. Influenced by our country's light procedure in legislation and nationalism in procedural law, some judicial organs and judicial personnel even think that procedural law only binds the parties and other participants in litigation, and the judicial organs may not be bound by legal procedures and systems. In fact, in our country, misjudged cases often occur not because of improper application of substantive law, but because the procedural law is not strictly implemented and the procedural law itself is not perfect. Due to the influence of national selfish departmentalism, the lack of a set of strict, concrete and reasonable procedural rules in the procedural law, and the neglect of procedures by judicial organs in the process of law enforcement, judicial activities are easy to deviate from the track stipulated in the procedural law. Improper procedures will inevitably lead to irregular law enforcement and judicial injustice.

Fourthly, it is impossible to establish a real judicial responsibility system under the current internal management system of judicial organs. Due to the long-term influence of administrative management, China's judicial organs basically manage judicial work by administrative management, especially judicial organs are often used to managing court trials in this way. In China's judicial organs, judges always appear in trial proceedings as court staff rather than judges. They exercise their functions and powers on behalf of the court, including investigating and collecting evidence according to law, organizing and presiding over the trial of cases, but they have no right to make judgments independently. At present, a considerable number of courts exercise jurisdiction over cases in the name of collective responsibility of judicial committees or administrative courts. No matter whether the case is serious or difficult, it is decided by the judicial Committee or the court through discussion. The sole court and collegiate bench are only responsible for the facts of the case, losing their due functions, resulting in the situation that judges can't judge and judges don't judge, and the trial and judgment are seriously decoupled. Because the court and the judicial committee have the actual jurisdiction of the case, the result of the judgment and the corresponding responsibility are naturally borne by the collective, and no one is responsible for the result of the so-called collective responsibility. This practice of managing the court by administrative management not only violates the unique regularity of trial work, but also does not conform to the legal provisions. Although the independent exercise of judicial power by the people's courts does not mean that judges handle cases independently, the judgments of the people's courts should always be made in the name of the courts by the judicial organizations prescribed by law. At present, with the continuous expansion of the functions of the judiciary and the substantial increase of cases, the efficiency of court work has increasingly become an obstacle to the image of the court, and the current management mode of the court system has deepened the lack of judges' sense of responsibility and the inefficiency of trial work, resulting in a "trust crisis" of the whole society in the judiciary.

Fifth, the legal professional level of judicial personnel is low, and judicial corruption is quite serious. First of all, compared with developed countries ruled by law, China has relatively low requirements for the qualifications of judges and prosecutors. For example, China's "Judges Law" determines that the starting point of judges' vocational education is bachelor degree or above, and so does the provisions of the "Public Prosecutor Law". However, the actual situation of the existing academic qualifications of judicial personnel in China is far from this requirement. Of the more than 250,000 judges in the national court system, only 5.6% are undergraduates and only 0.25% are postgraduates. Among the more than 200,000 prosecutors in the national procuratorial organ system, there are even fewer at the undergraduate level, accounting for only 4%. Most members of China's judicial team came to the judicial organs after 1979. Judging from the source of this team, it mainly consists of three parts: First, politics. The second is to transfer troops; Third, high school graduates who enter the judicial organs through social recruitment. Judging from the proportion of people, the latter two parts are far ahead. In China, drivers can be judges, military cadres can be judges and workers can be judges. People who have not been trained by the political and legal departments, have not handled cases, and have not studied law can go to the court as the president. (Note: Xia Yong, editor-in-chief: Towards the Age of Rights, China University of Political Science and Law Press, 1995, p. 240. It can be seen that the non-specialization tendency of the current judicial team in China is quite serious. Another serious problem of the judicial team in China is judicial corruption. It should be said that the judicial team in China was quite clean in the early days of reform and opening up, but with the increasingly serious corruption in society infiltrating into the judicial team, the problem of judicial corruption has gradually become serious. In recent years, although judicial organs at all levels have done a lot of work in building a clean government, there are still violations of law and discipline within judicial organs, some of which are still very serious in nature and circumstances. In some places, there are even phenomena that the fields of violation of law and discipline are getting wider and wider, the positions of those who violate law and discipline are getting higher and higher, the amount of illegal income is getting bigger and bigger, and the means are getting more and more cunning and bad. (Note: Zong He: "Writing a New Chapter in History-Recording the National Meeting of Presidents of High Courts", People's Justice 1997 No.2) seriously tarnished the judicial image and damaged the authority of the legal system. At present, the phenomenon of judicial corruption in China is spreading at an alarming rate, and there are many folk proverbs circulating among the people, such as "a big hat is stuck at both ends, eating the plaintiff and eating the defendant;" The plaintiff and the defendant have finished eating and said that the legal system is not perfect ",and so on. All these show the seriousness of judicial corruption, and some judges and prosecutors have become the source of corruption. (Note: Li Shuguang: "97 Rule of Law: Five Major Issues and Five Major Trends", Law 1997 No.2)

The above drawbacks of China's judicial system make our current judicial system unable to meet the needs of building a socialist country ruled by law and effectively implementing existing laws. Not only can it not carry forward the people's judicial system, but it also seriously damages the judicial image and the authority and unity of the national legal system. Therefore, the reform of the judicial system is imperative.