Study on the Litigation Mechanism with Court Trial as the Core

Abstract:
Trial is the core of civil procedure. It is not only significant for the result of dispute settlement, but also is the heartland between right of appeal and court jurisdiction and involves a lot of issues including judicial justice and litigation efficiency.
Being in the heart of civil litigation, court trial reform has always been a heated topic in practical and theoretical studies. On the fourth plenary session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Promoting Rule of Law was approved.
The decision proposed a litigation system reform with trial as the core and pointed out that court trial should play a decisive role in ascertaining facts, verifying evidence, protecting right of action and fair judgment.
Taking the decision as an opportunity and facing the fact of lack of judicial personnel, judicial resources and of judicial authority, this article will once again discuss the litigation system reform with trial as the core.
The litigation system reform with trial as the core is by no means a new issue in practical and theoretical studies. It evolves as civil action develops. China’s civil action system has long been influenced by traditional legal ideology in feudal society and the pattern of the former Soviet Union, thus being characterized by strong ex officio doctrine. Before 1982 when the civil procedure act was first promulgated, China almost copied the trial mode of the former Soviet Union. In essence, the mode was regarded as the super-ex officio doctrine. Under such mode, judges were responsible for verifying facts and investigating evidence. At that time, judges had already found a verdict in their hearts before court trials due to super-ex officio doctrine. Such phenomenon had become a common practice and court trial was nothing but a formality. The litigation system reform with trial as the core could not be formed.
With the social and economic development, the individual freedom advocated in liberal economy has influenced the judicial sector. In 1991, civil procedure law weakened the power of courts. Instead, the litigants’ status in litigation was strengthened through the clarification of litigants’ burden of proof, limitation of the scope of courts investigating evidence and through the strengthening of functions of court trials. Following the changes in such concepts, the reform in the pattern of civil economic trials first stressed the litigants’ burden of proof and then advocated trials in courts and open trials. [Reform in the Way of Civil and Economic Trials by Wang Yaxin published on the first issue in 1994 on Social Sciences in China] Since then, The Regulations of Supreme People’s Court Concerning Civil Litigation Evidence further consolidated the system of court trials as the core through specifying the burden of proof and the validity of the certification. It’s safe to say that the reform in the trial pattern in the 1980s served as a guideline for the litigation system reform with trial as the core. However, the reform at that time focuses more on burden of proof and the innovation in the management pattern of trials and to some extent neglected the court trial procedure with litigation as the core.
(For more information, please stay tuned for the collection of research results which will be published by Shenzhen Qianhai Cooperation Zone People’s Court recently.)