审判委员会作为中国人民法院内部的最高审判组织,长期以来发挥着“总结审判经验”和“讨论重大、疑难案件”两大核心职能. 根据相关规范解读,不难发现,审判委员会的案件讨论功能理论上存在“传统总结经验和议决案件论”、“案件讨论限缩论”以及“案件讨论法律适用论”三种观点. 随着立法变革和司法责任制改革深入推进,“讨论重大、疑难案件”功能更加备受质疑,尤其是对其过分运用限制了“总结审判经验”功能发挥. 2018年修改的《中华人民共和国人民法院组织法》第二十七条将其案件讨论功能确定为“讨论决定重大、疑难、复杂案件的法律适用”,从立法的视角确立了“案件讨论法律适用论”,树立了其正统地位. 然而,需要注意的是,无论从理论研究的视角看,抑或是司法实践需要的视角看,这种定位并未形成定论,仍有较大争议,社会各方出现多种改良观点,仍需要对审判委员会问题进行深入研究,再造其功能. 总体看来,纵观各种理论观点折射出的改革思路,“传统总结经验和议决案件论”已不合时宜基本形成共识,“案件讨论范围限缩论”和“案件讨论法律适用论”均存在难以界定范围和操作性不强等根本缺陷,导致司法责任制无法落实,也饱受质疑. 基于此,在司法责任制不断深入改革的背景下,对人民法院审判委员会功能较为可行的再造路径应是废止审判委员会案件讨论功能,还疑难、复杂重大案件决定权于合议庭,同时充分发挥专业法官会议案件咨询研讨功能,以保障审判委员会功能回归“总结审判经验”.
As the highest trial organization of People's Court in China, the Judicial Committee has long played the two core functions of “summarizing trial experience” and “discussing major and difficult cases”. According to the interpretation of related specifications, it is not difficult to find that there are theoretically three viewpoints of the trial discussion function of the Judicial Committee: “traditional summarization of experience and theory of unity for case”, “theory of case discussion limitation” and “theory of application for law of case discussion”. With the advancement of legislation reform and the reform of the judicial responsibility system, the function of “discussing major and difficult cases” has become more questionable, especially, its excessive use has limited the function of “summarizing trial experience”. Article 27 of Organizational Law of the People's Court, amended in 2018, defines the function of its case discussion as “discussing the legal application of major, difficult and complicated cases”, and establishes the application of the case discussion law from the perspective of legislation, which established its orthodox status. However, it should be noted that whether from the perspective of theoretical research or the perspective of judicial practice, this positioning has not been final conclusion, and there is still much controversy, and there are many improved views on all sides of society, that the Judicial Committee issues should be studied deeply to recreate its functions. Generally speaking, looking at the reform ideas reflected by various theoretical viewpoints, “traditional summarization of experience and theory of unity for case” have basically reached a consensus at a time, and “theory of case discussion limitation” and “theory of application for law of case discussion” are difficult to define fundamental defects such as scope and operability, which leads to the failure to implement the judicial responsibility system and to be questioned. Based on this, in the context of the continuous and in-depth reform of the judicial responsibility system, the re-creating path to the function of case of the judicial committee of the people's court should be to abolish the discussion function of the judicial committee, and the decision-making power of difficult and complicated major cases should be returned to the collegial panel, at same time, the conference case consultation and discussion function of the professional judges should be fully utilized, to guarantee the return of the function of the trial committee to “summarizing the trial experience.”