Shanghai courts shorthanded as judges quit

A growing number of Shanghai judges have quit due to high pressure and low pay. At local courts, 74 judges were reported to have left their posts in 2013, leaving the remaining judges in China's busiest courtrooms to pick up the slack.

“Courts in such circumstances may allocate less time to each lawsuit and even become more reluctant to register new cases,” said Vincent Mu of Martin Hu & Partners. “In the long run, such negative effects can undermine the investment environment of China,” he added.

Low salary

The head of the Shanghai High People's Court Cui Yadong said that while young judges often work late into nights and weekends, many of them cannot afford an apartment in the city.

Salaries have not maintained pace with the increasing workload and living costs. Most new judges earn Rmb60,000 to Rmb80,000 (US$9,600 to US$12,800) a year, which is the same amount as seven years ago. The annual salary of a mid-level judge is around Rmb100,000 (US$16,100) – a pittance when compared with that of a similarly-experienced lawyer at an enterprise or private law firm.

Moreover, each judge in Shanghai handled an average of 131 cases last year – approximately one case every two working days – which is more than double the national average. Once prestigiously regarded, judges today feel overworked and undervalued. Reasons for departing also included lack of respect and poor job satisfaction. Most of those who have quit are between the ages of 40 and 50, leaving the courts with a shortage of more-experienced judges.

Lawyers told China Law & Practice that these conditions affect the quality of the court mechanism in Shanghai. Despite attempts to strengthen the judiciary, China has yet to come up with a strategy to overcome this specific challenge. “The key issue before the government is how to properly reward the judges for their work,” said Mu. He added that the latest reform, which targets making the court system independent from the local government, fails to answer this question.

Recruitment challenges

Recruitment is getting harder as many judges are drawn to private practice and therefore pursue careers as lawyers instead. These ex-judges' direct experience with the judicial system's decision making is expected to aid the development of the legal industry, though their appearance as competitors concerns existing lawyers. There are over 230,000 lawyers and almost 200,000 judges nationwide, according to Xinhua.

How will Shanghai's courts compensate for their understaffing? Pulling judges from less-active cities is not an option as moving judges across different parts of China is difficult. The only practical solution to the headcount gap is to recruit new judges, although education and training are likely to be cut short due to the high caseload. This is bad news for all as the quality of case examination will suffer, eventually leading companies and law firms to lose confidence in the courts' ability to handle the influx of new, diverse, complex and sensitive cases.

Given the dramatically-rising number of cases filed in China – and especially Shanghai – even a small drop in manpower can rattle the courts. This apparent brain drain is not only occurring within the legal sector, but the medical and educational sectors as well. The much-anticipated reform to foster judicial independence will raise the responsibility and authority of judges but also build the pressure on them, emphasising the need to prioritise their long-term wellbeing before a systematic restructuring.


By Katherine Jo