China News Service, Beijing, October 25 (Reporter Zhang Su) The reporter learned from the Supreme People's Court of China that in the past three years, courts across the country have hired more than 9,500 retired judges, and more than 3,800 are currently employed.
On October 23, the "Supreme People's Court Judges Forum" with the theme of "Gathering the Strength of Silver-haired Judges to Help Make Real Decisions and End Disputes" was held. Zhang Jun, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and President of the Supreme People's Court, attended the meeting.
According to reports, in recent years, courts at all levels across the country have attached great importance to the work of retired judges, built platforms for performance of duties, and improved working mechanisms, allowing the silver-haired force to shine in the fields of conflict resolution, judicial trials, team inheritance, and rule of law publicity, and have embarked on a path to empower silver-haired talents with court characteristics and judicial warmth.
"Giving full play to the role of retired judges and hiring retired judges to participate in mediation and other work is not a phased, temporary move, but an inevitable choice to meet political requirements, closely follow the deployment of the party group, and meet practical needs. It is a key move to revitalize human resources, solve judicial problems, and serve the people." said Ye Jian, deputy director of the Political Department of the Supreme People's Court.
In practice, many retired judges have returned to help on the front lines of judicial trials. It is known that the Hainan Danzhou Court established Hainan's first "migratory bird" mediator workstation, hiring 23 "migratory bird" silver-haired talents as mediators, and successfully mediated a total of 2,917 disputes; the Beijing High Court was established by more than 80 retired judges and veterans The "Golden Sunset Community Legal Service Team" composed of party members has mediated more than 100,000 disputes in 10 years; Jilin Baicheng Intermediate People's Court established a "Silver Mediation Team" and successfully mediated 4,694 disputes, with a success rate of 80.16%...
At this meeting, specially invited mediators An Fengde and Wang Jian from the circuit court of the Supreme People's Court, retired judge Li Hongling from the local court, and Wu Bin, representative of the local court's mediation organization, exchanged their work performance and experiences based on their work experience.
"I have experienced a lot and gained a lot from the specially invited mediation work for more than a year." An Fengde said that he deeply realized that only by persisting in resolving "legal knots" in accordance with the law and using heart to resolve "mental knots", combining hardness and softness, and integrating law, reason and emotion, can we truly achieve "double solutions" and let the people feel fairness and justice in every appeal and petition.
Li Hongling from Tengchong, Yunnan, said that since 2022, a total of 3,273 cases have been successfully mediated, with an average of more than 800 cases per year. “Every time I see the smiles of the people involved after untying their knots and hear their heartfelt ‘thank you’, I feel that all the efforts have been worth it.”
Based on everyone's speeches, Zhang Jun further gave full play to the role of retired judges, mobilized all forces to jointly resolve conflicts and disputes, and safeguard fairness and justice. He put forward three requirements, including fully recruiting retired judges to serve as special mediators, giving full play to the light and heat of employed retired judges, and fully implementing the performance guarantees for employed retired judges.
He pointed out that local courts should have a deep understanding of the in-depth considerations of the Party Central Committee’s decision-making and deployment, and in accordance with the specific arrangements of the “Opinions on Strengthening and Standardizing the Employment of Retired Judges for Mediation Work”, take greater efforts and more practical measures to recruit retired judges as special mediators, further enrich the dispute resolution force, and jointly make practical decisions and resolve disputes.
Zhang Jun also said that the "silver-haired judges" have undiminished ambitions to retire and continue to devote themselves enthusiastically to the work of settling scores and ending disputes, inspiring everyone to continue to "serve the overall situation and provide justice for the people" based on their posts.
