Deepening reform of the judiciary

Concentrating the distribution and management power of local judicial resources at the provincial level will avoid interference from city and county levels, but could also result in an expansion of provincial power and increase the possibility that provincial courts and procuratorates might intervene in the work of local courts and procuratorates.

Therefore, we should restrict provincial courts and procuratorates' power to make sure that "local authorities' interference" doesn't turn into "provincial authorities' interference".

Fifth, judicial budgets should be separated from public security budgets. Independent judicial budgets should be available in detail to the public to invite public supervision.

Provincial finance authorities should set the base for judicial budgets according to the basic data provided by provincial courts and procuratorates, and the provincial people's congress should review and supervise all budgets.

Auditing departments should strengthen their reviews, and discipline inspection and supervision departments should also intensify their oversight of judicial budgets.

Moreover, the management of internal personnel, finance and other resources within the provincial courts and prosecutor's offices should be divided. Administrative management should be on a separate track from judicial practice management.

In particular, we should establish a "firewall" to prevent the administrative officials of provincial courts and prosecutor's offices from intervening in professional practice of subordinate courts and prosecutor's offices.

We might also want to explore the socialization of judicial administrative staffs through the purchase of services.

The author is a law professor with Tsinghua University and member of the Law Committee of the National People's Congress.