Recently, the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice issued the Opinions on Giving Full Play to the Basic Role of People's Mediation to Promote the Governance of Source of Complaints (hereinafter referred to as the Opinions), and the relevant responsible persons of the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice answered questions from reporters about the Opinions.
Q: What is the background for the formulation and promulgation of the Opinions?
A: General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that the construction of the rule of law should not only focus on the end, but also focus on the front and prevent disease. Our national conditions decide that we cannot become a "litigation power". We must adhere to the non litigation dispute resolution mechanism in front, and resolve conflicts and disputes at the grass-roots level in a timely manner. According to statistics, in 2022, the people's courts will accept 16.106 million civil administrative cases in the first instance, and 8.95 million disputes that have not entered the case filing process through pre litigation mediation, which indicates that a large number of contradictions and disputes can be effectively resolved before litigation through mediation and other non litigation methods. People's mediation is a legal system with Chinese characteristics, which plays a fundamental role in the diversified resolution mechanism of contradictions and disputes. At present, there are 693000 people's mediation committees nationwide, basically forming an organizational network covering urban and rural areas, key fields and units; In 2022, 14.94 million contradictions and disputes will be resolved through people's mediation, of which 6.75 million will be entrusted by the people's courts; In the first half of this year, 8.77 million disputes were mediated, of which 4.41 million were successfully entrusted by the people's courts. It shows that people's mediation has solved a large number of contradictions and disputes at the grass-roots level before litigation, and played a major role as the main channel and force in the resolution of grass-roots contradictions and disputes. It not only effectively alleviates the litigation burden of the parties and the pressure on the people's courts to handle cases, but also effectively maintains social harmony and stability. The Opinions are formulated to further play the fundamental role of people's mediation in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and disputes, further promote the governance of litigation sources, and reduce litigation increment from the source.
Q: The Opinions focus on people's mediation. What is the general idea for formulating and issuing the Opinions?
A: General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to people's mediation and has repeatedly given important instructions to people's mediation. The general idea for the issuance of the Opinions is to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, comprehensively implement the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress, deeply study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on the Rule of Law, conscientiously implement the important directive spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping on mediation, adhere to the leadership of the Party, and adhere to the people-centered approach, Adhere to and develop the "Maple Bridge Experience" in the new era, further strengthen the people's mediation work, improve the litigation mediation docking mechanism, strengthen work security, promote source prevention and on-site substantive resolution of disputes, and make positive contributions to building a higher level of China of peace and the rule of law. To emphasize the role of people's mediation and promote the governance of litigation sources, we must always adhere to the leadership of the Party, adhere to the supremacy of the people, adhere to prevention first, adhere to coordination and linkage, adhere to substantive resolution, and adhere to innovative development.
Q: The Opinions proposed to consolidate the "first line of defense" for people's mediation. What are the specific requirements?
Answer: Any contradiction and dispute has a process of occurrence and development. The first time to discover and resolve contradictions and disputes is not only the lowest cost, but also the best effect. People's mediation organizations are rooted at the grassroots level and spread throughout urban and rural communities. People's mediators come from the masses and are familiar with social conditions and public opinions. People's mediation procedures are convenient, flexible, do not hurt feelings, and do not charge fees. These advantages can maximize the early detection, timely and local resolution of conflicts and disputes, which can not only reduce the burden of parties, but also repair damaged social relations, It can also avoid contradictions and disputes from entering administrative and judicial channels, and save administrative law enforcement and judicial costs.
Focusing on the front end resolution and substantive resolution of contradictions and disputes, the Opinions insists on prevention first, coordination and linkage, and puts forward specific requirements for strengthening the "first line of defense" of people's mediation from four aspects: strengthening the troubleshooting and prevention of contradictions and disputes, strengthening the resolution of grass-roots contradictions and disputes, strengthening the resolution of contradictions and disputes in key areas, and strengthening the resolution of major difficult and complex contradictions and disputes. In order to find conflicts and disputes as early as possible, the Opinions require people's mediation organizations and people's mediators to take the troubleshooting of conflicts and disputes as a basic and routine work, and at the same time strengthen the information sharing, joint troubleshooting and linkage with the mass prevention and governance forces and grass-roots stability maintenance units, so as to achieve full coverage of troubleshooting and no blind spots. In order to resolve conflicts and disputes on the spot in a timely manner, the Opinions requires strengthening the standardization of township (sub district), village (community) and professional people's mediation organizations, and strengthening the mediation of common conflicts and disputes at the grass-roots level and in key industries and professional fields. For major, difficult and complex conflicts and disputes, the Opinion proposes to rely on the existing public legal service center to establish a "one-stop" non litigation dispute resolution center (or dispute mediation center) at the city and county levels, coordinate various legal service resources, link various non litigation dispute resolution methods, and form a joint effort.
Q: What are the new requirements of the Opinions on strengthening the docking of litigation and mediation?
Answer: The Opinions, starting from standardizing the docking of litigation and mediation, put forward requirements on strengthening pre litigation guidance, timely diversion of cases, and accepting mediation according to law. The first is to provide guidance for non litigation dispute resolution in litigation services, rule of law publicity and other work. If it is appropriate to solve disputes through people's mediation, explain the characteristics and advantages of people's mediation to the parties, and guide the parties to apply for mediation to the territorial or relevant people's mediation organizations according to the provisions of the People's Mediation Law. Second, for cases that are suitable for settlement through people's mediation, the people's court may first appoint people to mediate before filing or during litigation. The appointed and entrusted people's mediation organizations may be selected by the parties from the list of people's mediation organizations published by the judicial administrative organ, or designated by the people's court from the list of specially invited mediation organizations. Third, for the dispute cases entrusted to the people for mediation, the people's mediation organizations should timely accept, conduct mediation, reach mediation agreements, and feed back the mediation results to the people's courts in accordance with the People's Mediation Law and the National People's Mediation Standards. If no mediation agreement can be reached through mediation, the people's mediation organization shall go through the procedures for the conclusion of mediation in a timely manner and return the case materials to the entrusted people's court.
Q: In what ways does the Opinions strengthen the guarantee of mediation work?
A: The effective implementation of people's mediation cannot be separated from the strong guarantee of team and funds. At present, there are 3.176 million people's mediators in the country, but their age and knowledge structure are unreasonable. The full-time people's mediators account for only 13% of the total number, and funding security is seriously insufficient for a long time.
To strengthen the construction of the people's mediation team, the Opinions put forward requirements for optimizing the structure of the people's mediation team from the two aspects of professionalism and professionalism, and proposed to establish a mechanism for young lawyers to participate in people's mediation, and organize young lawyers, especially new lawyers, to exercise in judicial offices, public legal service centers and other institutions. In order to improve the quality of the people's mediators, the Opinions stressed the need to implement the training system dominated by the judicial administrative organs at the county level, take various forms, strengthen the training of people's mediators, and constantly improve the ability and level of people's mediators to resolve conflicts and disputes under the new situation.
To strengthen the fund guarantee, the Opinions put forward requirements from three aspects: local financial guarantee, unit guarantee and social guarantee. In terms of local financial security, we should promote the implementation of the full guarantee that the funds needed for people's mediation work are included in the financial budget at the same level, establish a dynamic growth mechanism for people's mediation work funds, increase the government's efforts to purchase people's mediation services, make full use of the central and provincial transfer payment funds, and supplement the insufficient funds for people's mediation work. In terms of the guarantee for the establishment of the unit, the establishment unit of the people's mediation organization and the competent department of the relevant industry shall provide office conditions such as places and facilities and necessary working funds. In terms of social security, explore the establishment of relevant foundations, encourage people's mediation organizations to provide donations, etc., and ensure the effective implementation of people's mediation through multiple channels.
Q: The Opinions proposed that the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice should establish a "head to head" docking mechanism. How to achieve this?
A: To do a good job in people's mediation in the new era and new journey, and to improve the quality and efficiency of people's mediation, science and technology are needed. The Opinions proposed that the Supreme People's Court and the Ministry of Justice should achieve the "head to head" docking by strengthening the docking of information platforms. At present, the Supreme People's Court has established a people's court mediation platform and a "head to head" docking mechanism with 13 central units. The Ministry of Justice has established a people's mediation management information system covering the whole country, and more than 20 provinces have developed intelligent mobile mediation systems. The Opinions proposed that the Ministry of Justice should speed up the construction of a non litigation resolution platform for contradictions and disputes, achieve business collaboration and data sharing with the Supreme People's Court, and ensure smooth online circulation of dispute cases and information data exchange and sharing. The people's mediation information platform relies on the non litigation resolution platform of the Ministry of Justice to realize the docking with the relevant system platforms of the Supreme People's Court, and carry out online consultation, online diversion, online mediation, online feedback, and online judicial confirmation of conflicts and disputes.
Q: The judicial administrative organs and the people's courts share the responsibility of guiding people's mediation work. How can we strengthen division of labor, coordination and work guidance?
key word: people's mediation
dispute
contradiction
work
