Standing at the gate of Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, Chen Te gave a last glance at his workplace of 14 years. His former colleagues were still working overtime in their offices, as he had often done.
Chen quit as a judge in April because he felt his professional potential was unfulfilled. The 40-year-old was once a rising star in Beijing's legal community, with his research programs recognized as top-class.
The Supreme People's Court (SPC) invited him to help write judicial interpretations of traffic and medical lawsuits, an honor that made him feel part of the country's legal progress. "My views were adopted as part of the understanding of the law," he recalls.
Chen had been hoping to sit on the country's highest judicial body, but he gradually realized he wouldn't fulfill his professional ambitions on the bench. He decided to become a lawyer.
Chen is part of a growing exodus of judges and prosecutors from the judicial system.
Mu Ping, president of the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court, says more than 500 judges quit from 2010 to 2014, and the number is growing.
Shenzhen's intermediate and grassroots courts lost 15.5 percent of their judges from 2009 to 2013, and Shanghai saw more than 300 judges resign in the same period. In 2014, Shanghai's courts saw 86 judges leave, followed by 18 more in first quarter of 2015.
The judiciary is losing its luster for law graduates. Last year, fewer applicants took the judicial and procuratorate recruitment examinations in east China's Zhejiang and Fujian provinces.
This year, some local courts and procuratorates in at least eight provincial regions have canceled the recruiting examinations due to a lack of applicants, according to the Southern Metropolis Daily.
While the brain drain continues, China's leaders are striving to advance the rule of law, a key aspect of deepening reforms and rejuvenating the nation.
Since the fourth plenary session of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in October 2014, China has embarked on a series of reforms to improve judicial justice and credibility, including prioritizing trials in litigation procedures, building a lifelong responsibility system for judges to prevent miscarriages of justice, and improving jury and public supervision.
New judicial organs have been established. The SPC has set up three intellectual property rights courts in late 2014 and inaugurated two circuit courts in Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province, and Shenyang City, capital of the northeastern Liaoning Province, this year.
However, the low pay and mounting workloads are driving professionals from the legal system to law firms.
