Give full play to the role of people's assessors and promote trial openness

(Author: Liu Chen, Zhao Yan) The people's assessor system refers to a judicial system in which the state judicial organs recruit non-professional judges as jurors when trying cases and try cases together with professional judges or professional judges. The people's assessor system is a requirement of China's judicial democracy, an important embodiment of China's consistent adherence to the mass line, and an important guarantee for judicial fairness. From a practical point of view, the participation of people's assessors in the trial of cases has indeed played a relatively positive role and promoted the smooth development of trial work. In its daily work, the Civil Trial Division of the Changbai Court has paid attention to implementing the people's assessor system and promoting trial openness, and has achieved good results.

First, give full play to the role of adjudicators.

In the course of participating in the trial of cases, people's assessors can overcome the mindset formed by judges due to their professional habits, make up for judges' deficiencies, give full play to their respective advantages and strengths, learn from each other's strong points and complement each other's strengths, make trial work closer to the people's feelings and public opinion, close to social values and moral standards, and make judgments more reasonable, reasonable, and legal, so as to enhance the social credibility and sense of identity of court judgments, and better realize the unity of legal and social effects in case handling.

The second is to give full play to the role of "mediators".

Most of the people's assessors are from the grass-roots level, and compared with judges, they have a better understanding of public sentiment and public opinion, and are familiar with public opinion editorials. There are also some jurors who usually participate in the mediation of some civil disputes, which can be said to be experts in this regard. With the cooperation and participation of people's assessors in the mediation of civil and commercial cases in the courts, various contradictions can be resolved at the grass-roots level to a greater extent, and the case can be concluded to the greatest extent.

The third is to give full play to the role of "informants."

People's assessors personally participating in the trial activities of cases can directly understand the trial and adjudication process of specific cases, and can explain and publicize the law to more people by case, so that more people can understand the law and the work of the court, enhance the people's understanding and support for the work of the court, and help establish a fair and honest social image of the people's courts. In addition, people's assessors come from the masses, are familiar with the lives of the masses, understand the voices of the masses, and can better reflect the demands and legal needs of the masses to the court, and better play the role of communication and coordination of bridges and ties.

 The fourth is to give full play to the role of "supervisors."

Jurors are appointed by the people's congress and must also accept the supervision of the people's congress; this is a powerful measure for the people's congress to exercise its supervisory power over the work of the courts, and it is also an effective form of democratic supervision over the work of the courts. In the course of trial, people's mediators truly participate in the trial of specific cases, and all of the judges' law enforcement actions and the entire adjudication process of the court are within the line of sight of the jurors and directly subject to the supervision of the jurors. It plays a positive and important role in further raising judges' awareness of abiding by the law, improving the quality of case handling, and promoting judicial fairness.