Full Text: White Paper on Judicial Reform in China

4. Enhancing Judicial Democracy

The people's courts as the judicial organs and the people's procuratorates as the legal supervisory organs also need to promote democracy to ensure judicial impartiality. China is striving to establish and improve the systems of people's jurors and people's supervisors. This provides a significant guarantee for developing socialist democratic politics, and realizing the people's participation in the administration of state affairs in accordance with the law.

Improving the system of people's jurors. The system of people's jurors is a major way for the public to directly participate in and supervise judicial work. In 2004, China's legislative organ promulgated the Decision on Improving the System of People's Jurors. The state has expanded the sources of people's jurors to all walks of life, and determine the people's jurors for cases by random selection from the rosters. In a collegiate panel, people's jurors have the same power as the judges, except that they cannot serve as chief judges, and exercise the right to vote independently for the findings of fact and the application of law. The people's courts at all levels have held training sessions for people's jurors, mainly focusing on judicial procedure, professional skills and awareness of the rule of law, so as to improve their capability to perform their duties.

The graphics shows cases with the Participation of People's Jurors from 2006 to 2011, according to China's white paper on judicial reform published by the Information Office of the State Council on Oct 9, 2012. [Xinhua]

(Table 1. Cases with the Participation of People's Jurors 2006-2011)

Attempt to establish the system of people's supervisors. In 2003, the Supreme People's Procuratorate launched a pilot program to establish the system of people's supervisors. In October 2010, this system is comprehensively implemented in procuratorial organs throughout the country. People's supervisors are selected from all walks of life who supervise and assess, according to supervisory procedures, the following situations in power-abuse cases handled by the people's procuratorates: failure in putting a case on file for investigation, wrongfully putting a case on file for investigation, and withdrawing a case or stopping prosecution. From October 2003 to the end of 2011, people's supervisors in China supervised 35,514 cases, and gave opinions different from the original ones of the people's procuratorates in 1,653 cases. People's supervisors' votes in 908 cases were adopted by the people's procuratorates, accounting for 54.93% of the total.