Judges on Judicial Capacity

Author: Wu Jiayou, Editor-in-Chief
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-11-01
Features: The fifth volume of Hubei Judges' Forum includes outstanding papers from the 15th Academic Symposium of the Hubei Court System. In early 2005, the Supreme People's Court, in line with the guiding principles, overall objectives, and main tasks of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on strengthening the Party's governance capacity, issued the Opinions on Enhancing Judicial Capacity and Improving Judicial Standards, proposing specific requirements and measures for courts to enhance judicial capacity in all judicial works. Judicial capacity naturally became the central theme of this year's judicial theory symposium. Judicial capacity building is not only a theoretical topic with rich connotations and a broad scope, but also a practical task with high technical content and strong operability. During the development of the socialist market economy system, the diversification of market entities, the diversification of interests, and the complexity of socio-economic relationships have given rise to various new legal issues. Society has strongly called for the enhancement of judicial capacity and the improvement of judicial standards. China is currently in a special historical period of social transformation and institutional restructuring, where social contradictions are prominent, interest conflicts are severe, and economic order is chaotic. Courts directly bear the immense challenges brought by frequent economic disputes, severe social security situations, and the underdeveloped legal interest adjustment mechanism. Judges hold great hope for improving the judicial system, establishing judicial authority, and enhancing judicial standards through judicial capacity building. For this reason, the topic of judicial capacity building resonated strongly, attracting active participation from a large number of judges and proactive involvement from scholars, adding a bright touch to our academic symposium. Their participation deepened the discussions, enriched the discourse, and invigorated the thinking. This year was one of the five years in recent history to receive the most submitted papers for evaluation, and it was also the most challenging for me and the other judges. The sighs of regret when we had to find reasons to reject good articles and announce the voting results still linger in my ears. What is capacity? It seems to be a "if you don't ask me, I know; if you ask me, I don't know" question. Everyone has a sense and experience of capacity, but accurately describing it is not that easy. The Cihai Dictionary defines capacity as "typically referring to the ability to complete certain activities, including the specific methods for completing them, as well as the psychological characteristics necessary for smoothly accomplishing certain activities." This explanation is clear but also confusing. The capacity here is clearly a purely psychological concept, but in social life, people's use of the term "capacity" far exceeds the scope of psychology. We not only say that someone has strong capacity but also that the current RMB has the capacity to appreciate, and enterprises have competitive capacity. Judging from this, the capacity subject in everyday life is not exclusively referring to people, and the content of capacity is not limited to the psychological aspect. So, what is judicial capacity? Compared to the understanding of capacity, there can naturally be no completely consistent answers. After reviewing a great deal of material, no clear definition has been found in academia. In the judicial practice community, there are also many different expressions. Most courts adopt a narrow definition of justice to define judicial capacity, which can be summarized into three categories: the origin theory (believing that judicial capacity refers to the ability and skills of judicial organs in their practical activities), the function theory (believing that judicial capacity refers to the level and ability of the People's Courts to independently exercise judicial duties in accordance with the Constitution and laws, follow the laws of judicial adjudication, promote judicial fairness, maintain judicial authority, and promote fairness and justice in the whole society), and the purpose theory (believing that judicial capacity refers to the conditions and skills of the People's Courts to recognize and grasp the laws of justice, use judicial means to resolve conflicts, serve economic development, and protect the fundamental interests of the masses). In this collection of papers, these three definitions are all reflected in different articles. Understanding judicial capacity should first start from the nature of justice, and then seek the definition of judicial capacity based on the laws of judicial activities. Only in this way can the confusion be cleared up and the issues be analyzed in an orderly manner. Justice is a profession, and judicial capacity should be a professional capacity. Any profession has certain work requirements, and the ability to perform work tasks is the essence of professional capacity. However, professions are hierarchical and specialized, and under different levels and divisions of labor, the work tasks are different, which means the requirements for capacity are also different. From the perspective of the laws of judicial activities, justice can also be stratified and classified. As we refer to justice, it includes both the judicial power as part of the state power and the judicial institutions as specialized bodies managing judicial activities—courts—as well as the individuals engaged in judicial activities—judges. In different senses, the tasks of justice are different, and thus the judicial capacity is also different. Regarding judicial power, judicial capacity is clearly the ability to maintain the stability of state power; for courts, judicial capacity should be the ability to implement the law and guide social order, as well as the formation of legal order; for judges, it is the ability to apply legal provisions to render fair judgments. It can be seen that the content of judicial capacity is determined by the different tasks of justice. Only when judicial capacity corresponds to different tasks can a concrete and clear understanding of judicial capacity be achieved, and then an analysis of judicial capacity can be conducted with work tasks as the main thread, uncovering various pathways and methods to cultivate judicial capacity. Defining judicial capacity in terms of different judicial work tasks means designing the goals and methods for cultivating judicial capacity with the work process as the main thread, because only work tasks can provide the content and interconnected links for cultivating judicial capacity. For example, regarding a judge's judicial capacity, a judge having certain legal knowledge does not necessarily mean having equal judicial capacity. Legal education may seem logically rigorous, but this is only in terms of knowledge itself, and its role in the growth of judicial capacity as a whole is negligible. This is because the knowledge structure of judicial capacity is completely different from that of law students. The difference is not only reflected in the amount of knowledge but more importantly in the structure of knowledge. Therefore, finding a knowledge structure suitable for a judge's work tasks has become an important goal for cultivating a judge's judicial capacity and improving judicial standards. This is the significance of discussing judicial capacity as a theoretical issue. In fact, in the subsequent papers, the authors have indeed conducted such discussions, whether they consciously linked judicial capacity to work tasks or not. Although the conclusions reached are not the same, and the methods of argumentation are not consistent, they are all centered around the current status and shortcomings of judicial capacity building in China, seeking steps and methods to improve judicial capacity. I believe that only through thorough discussion and selection can consensus be reached, and a better path be found. The fifth volume of Hubei Judges' Forum includes outstanding papers from the 15th Academic Symposium of the Hubei Court System. In early 2005, the Supreme People's Court, in line with the guiding principles, overall objectives, and main tasks of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 16th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on strengthening the Party's governance capacity, issued the Opinions on Enhancing Judicial Capacity and Improving Judicial Standards, proposing specific requirements and measures for courts to enhance judicial capacity in all judicial works. Judicial capacity naturally became the central theme of this year's judicial theory symposium. Judicial capacity building is not only a theoretical topic with rich connotations and a broad scope, but also a practical task with high technical content and strong operability. During the development of the socialist market economy system, the diversification of market entities, the diversification of interests, and the complexity of socio-economic relationships have given rise to various new legal issues. Society has strongly called for the enhancement of judicial capacity and the improvement of judicial standards. China is currently in a special historical period of social transformation and institutional restructuring, where social contradictions are prominent, interest conflicts are severe, and economic order is chaotic. Courts directly bear the immense challenges brought by frequent economic disputes, severe social security situations, and the underdeveloped legal interest adjustment mechanism. Judges hold great hope for improving the judicial system, establishing judicial authority, and enhancing judicial standards through judicial capacity building. For this reason, the topic of judicial capacity building resonated strongly, attracting active participation from a large number of judges and proactive involvement from scholars, adding a bright touch to our academic symposium. Their participation deepened the discussions, enriched the discourse, and invigorated the thinking. This year was one of the five years in recent history to receive the most submitted papers for evaluation, and it was also the most challenging for me and the other judges. The sighs of regret when we had to find reasons to reject good articles and announce the voting results still linger in my ears.