Law graduates must take assistant path to the top
Print Edition
LAW graduates in Shanghai are now facing tougher hurdles if they want to become judges, as new policies require that they first work as assistants to judges or procurators.
As part of judicial reform efforts, the city assigned the first batch of judge and procurator assistants in September. Ye Yangtian, a 24-year-old working with the Xuhui District People’s Procuratorate, was among them.
Under the instruction of procurators, Ye is now in charge of interviewing suspects, meeting with lawyers, investigating lawsuits, preparing reference documents, plus other work assigned by the procurators.
“Unlike a clerk, being a procurator’s assistant is more challenging and demanding,” Ye said.
It provides him with the opportunity to accumulate more experience in judicial procedures, helping him prepare to become a procurator, he said.
The assistant program was developed in Shanghai, one of the six provincial-level pilot regions for China’s judicial reform, together with Guangdong, Jilin, Hubei, Hainan and Qinghai provinces.
These regions, located in a diversity of areas and representing different economic development levels, have been chosen to pilot reforms aimed at improving management of judicial staff and injecting more accountability into the system, according to the office in charge of judicial reforms of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.
The Shanghai program requires judges, procurators, assistants and administrative staff to account for defined quotas of the total number of judicial staff.
These quotas are aimed at streamlining the management of judicial staff, said officials. Under the program, all judges and procurators will be selected from assistants.
Chen Xu, chief procurator with the Shanghai People’s Procuratorate, said judicial workers who could have become a procurator in their 20s in the past will now have to wait until they 35 to get that position.
“Like being a doctor, knowledge learned from textbooks is far from enough. Clinical practice is extremely important,” he said.
More mundane work
Wang Xinfang, head of the Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, said court assistants will help with much of the more mundane work, enabling judges to concentrate on determining the outcome of lawsuits and ultimately improve the quality and efficiency of judicial trials.
The communique released after the fourth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee last month said China will improve the system in which judicial powers are exercised and strengthen supervision over judicial activities.
The communique also pledged to establish cross-region courts and procurators, which is believed to reduce the interference of local governments on administrative litigation cases.
In Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Jilin Province, another pilot judicial reform region, administrative litigation cases in connection with local governments are assigned to courts in nearby regions by a higher-jurisdiction-level court.
“We chose to be procurators bearing the pursuit of judicial justice,” said Li Yuyu, a procurator with the People’s Procuratorate of Erdao District in the provincial capital of Changchun.
“The judicial reform that was put forward at the fourth plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee allowed us to have more courage to work independently and free from government influence,” added Li.
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