China's Supreme People's Court is considering to let jurors play a bigger role in handling major cases, in an effort to ensure people's participation in judicial work in the whole process.
Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, disclosed this in a speech at a just-concluded national working conference on the issue of jurors, which was convened here on September 3-4.
Jurors should work together with judges in the judgement of criminal, civil and administrative cases that have relatively big social impacts, Xiao said.
"People's jurors, with their unique advantages in contacting the masses, being familiar with the masses, and representing the masses, have played a historic contribution to displaying judicial democracy, safeguarding judicial justice, and building up the authority of justice," he said.
Jurors are known as "people's jurors" in China, which could be traced back to the 1930s, when the Communist Party of China (CPC) was engaged in an armed struggle against the Kuomintang regime. The CPC adopted the People's Juror System in its "revolutionary bases", to let ordinary people play due role in court judgement.
In 1954, the People's Republic of China (PRC) officially adopted the People's Juror System in her first Constitution.
In the late 1970s, China resumed the People's Juror System abolished during the catastrophic Cultural Revolution (1966-76). In 1984, A Resolution on Perfecting the People's Juror System was enacted to become the first single law in the country regarding the system.
In China, a jury is composed of one or two jurors selected randomly from people of different professions. Jurors make up at least one-third of a collegiate bench. Jury has jurisdiction in both fact-fending law-applying.
Xiao said, "People's jurors are not professional judges and comprehensive recognition of judicature is not mandatory for them."
"The People's Jury System conforms to the democratic nature of the judiciary and helps maximizing justice," he said, "People jury system is a good approach for the Chinese people to participate in state affairs."
According to official figures, by the end of 2006, the country had 55,681jurors, who were involved in 644,723 cases at courts of different levels between May of 2005 and June of 2007.
Source: Xinhua
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