摘要： 人民陪审员制度是实现司法民主的理想选择。然而，实证研究表明，陪审制度实践效果与其理想目标相去甚远，衍生出民众参与度不高、适用意愿不强、陪审员难以实质性参与及被法官化等问题。要使制度理想为民众所接受并使制度功能得以充分发挥，须解决一元制度设计与二元社会结构潜在对立、陪审员角色定位与民众认识错位、陪审民主功能与司法功能缺乏整合、陪审员职权配置与案件类型不相匹配等问题，以适当分权、适度开放的二元或多元设计弥合理想与现实的距离，消解潜在的对立和冲突。

关键词: 司法民主, 人民陪审, 陪审制度

Abstract: The people's assessor system is an ideal choice for judiciary to keep the affinity to the people and to reflect popularity. Empirical research shows that, however, it has some problems, such as public participation being not high, the willingness to apply the law being not strong, the assessor's substantive participation being difficult and assessors having the same duties, rights and liabilities as judges, for the ideal system design might be incompatible with social and institutional contexts. To make the systematic ideal accepted  and the institutional function fully played, the following problems must be resolved: the potential conflict between the unified system design and dual social structure, the dislocation of the assessor's role designed and the public awareness, the lack of integration between the democratic function and judicial function of the people's assessor system, the mismatch between the allocation of the assessor's authority and the types of cases. The gap between reality and ideal should be bridged, and the potential conflicts should be resolved, by designing dual or diversified systems with appropriate decentralization and proper openness.

Key words: Judicial Democracy, People's Assessment, Empirical Analysis