| Trial management is the general term describing various mechanisms that restrict, supervise and regulate the operation of the trial power inside the court. In its institutional evolution from the end of the 20th century to the present, trial management has shown the characteristics of stress reaction, that is, responding to the trend of trial power decentralization in stages. The current trial management modernization reform is a part of this evolution, i.e., courts have been trying to restrict trial activities by advocating the case review system and implementing the trial quality evaluation index system since the judicial responsibility reform led to further decentralization of trial power. The current trial management system comprises three operating mechanisms, that is, the process-restraint mechanism focusing on the trial procedure, the post-assessment mechanism focusing on the trial quality and effectiveness, and the pre-review mechanism focusing on the allocation of trial power. The implementation of the trial management system has certain legitimacy given by the specific reform context, but there is a risk of deviating from some established objectives in that context, including the reversal of judicial responsibility, the undermining of substantive trial, the exclusion of formal procedural norms, and the substitution of policy-consistency for principle-coherence. China should adjust the orientation of trial management based on case classification, weaken the consequentialist logic, and limit the goal of trial information symmetry, so as to promote the evolution of institutional logic of trial management and shape the prudent and responsible role of judges. |
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