Chinese courts improve the mechanism for "unrobed judges" to participate in trials and establish a circuit breaker mechanism for the number of cases

China News Service, Beijing, October 23 (Reporter Zhang Su) People's jurors have the right to participate in trial activities and express opinions independently in accordance with the law, and are known as "judges without robes". "The People's Court has improved the mechanism for people's jurors to participate in trials and guaranteed the rights of people's jurors to participate in trials." Sun Zhenping, director of the Political Department of the Supreme People's Court of China, said in Beijing on the 23rd.

Reporters learned from the press conference held by the Supreme People's Court that day that in recent years, people's jurors have participated in the trial of Mou Mou's abuse case and the infringement case of minors urinating into hot pots, etc., which have consolidated the public opinion basis for fact determination and enhanced the social recognition of judicial decisions.

The abuse case of Mou Mou showed that Mou abused his live-in girlfriend with whom he lived together, the circumstances were atrocious, and the victim died. The trial court sentenced him in accordance with the law. It is reported that when the people's assessors participated in the trial of the case, they provided simple public support for the collegial panel's conviction and sentencing.

"During the review, I started from the simple understanding that men and women should respect and love each other when getting along, combined with my work experience at the grassroots level, and made an independent judgment on whether Mou's behavior constituted abuse in the crime of abuse. I focused on whether Mou's behavior should be regarded as a 'family member' relationship in the crime of abuse, and whether there was a causal relationship between Mou's behavior and consequences. My opinions were adopted by the collegial panel." Li Wenyun, a people's juror who participated in the trial of the case, said at the press conference.

It is also reported that when participating in the trial of the infringement case of minors urinating into a hot pot, the people's jurors asked targeted questions to the two minors and their guardians, focusing on verifying the guardian's supervision of the children's daily education, friendship scope and online behavior. They completely restored the objective facts of the guardian's "emphasis on material supply and neglect of moral cultivation", laying a solid foundation for the collegial panel to accurately determine tort liability.

In order to effectively protect the people's right to know, participate, express and supervise trial activities, Sun Zhenping said that the People's Court has broadened the source channels of people's jurors, accurately grasped the scope of trial participation, and strictly implemented the requirements for random selection of individual cases and the annual upper limit for the number of trial cases. "Generally, the upper limit of the annual number of cases for each people's juror to participate in the trial shall be reasonably determined within the scope of no more than 30 cases, and an early warning and circuit breaker mechanism for the number of trial cases exceeding the limit shall be established to ensure that every people's juror has equal access to the opportunity to participate in the trial."

Shi Dongbo, director of the Judge Management Department of the Political Department of the Supreme People's Court, said that the People's Court will continue to improve and improve the judge guidance mechanism based on the list of fact-finding questions, and further promote people's jurors to be willing to speak, dare to speak, and be good at speaking. (over)