Owing to institutional factors, judicial organs can fail to play their due role in resolving social contradictions and conflicts, which has resulted in a rise in the number of cases involving people seeking help through non-judicial channels. This can be seen in the large number of petitions submitted to Party or government departments and even the outburst of some mass incidents.

The replacement of judicial organs by Party and government departments in handling civil disputes has seriously affected social harmony and stability and weakened the country's efforts to guarantee the legitimate rights and interests of its citizens.

Due to the lack of a sense of judicial justice, an increasing number of litigants have turned to a higher judicial organ for help when the first verdicts are given against them. Statistics indicate that 90.1 percent of litigants accepted their first verdicts nationwide from 2003 to 2007, but the number of appeals to the higher judicial organ in some regions has also been on the increase in recent years because of the growing number of litigants who feel there has been a miscarriage of justice.

Besides, corruption caused by some institutional problems within the judicial system is yet to be urgently handled. Corruption and malpractices among some judges within the judicial system have seriously compromised the credibility of the whole judiciary system. At the same time, the mishandling of cases that has been exposed from time to time poses an outstanding problem to the country's judicial system.

Due to the inability to act as impartial arbiters, the judicial organs fail to fulfill their role as the last defense of social justice. As a result, Party and government departments have become the arbitrators of social contradictions and disputes. This shift has not only affected the image of the Party and government departments, but also affected social stability and harmony.

Targeting the excessive administrative tinge within the country's judicial organ, the newly unveiled guideline maps out a series of steps toward correction and improvement. To change the localization of the judicial organ and its excessive dependence on local revenues, the guideline has a pledge that unified manpower and fiscal management of the judicial and procuratorial system will be promoted to wean the judicial system off the influence of local governments, a move aimed at eliminating or reducing administrative interventions into local judicial and procuratorial proceedings.

To strengthen judicial professionalism, measures will also be taken to set up a set of strict and orderly recruiting procedures for police, procurators and judges. To change excessive and redundant bureaucracy within the judicial and procuratorial systems, the guideline also demands reforms be made to the current presiding judge and collegial panel system, in a bid to make clearer the responsibilities of different departments and personnel and standardize the supervision between lower and higher-level departments.

The rule of law that China has gradually established since the launch of reform and opening-up in the late 1970s offers an institutional guarantee for it to push for judicial justice and independence.

The Chinese version of this article appeared in Study Times.