Abstract: As is reflected in practice，notary organizations′ status as independent legal entities failed to play its role to the full.Some notary offices are too commercialized to guarantee the quality of their notary acts because of loose control of the supervising department，while others are too strictly restricted by the supervising department.Both cases prevent further development of notary offices.In this paper，the author studies the problems in and causes of the structural reform of notary organizations and concludes that the problems are not caused by notary organizations′ status as independent legal entities.Instead they are caused by inadequate realization of notary organizations′ status as independent legal entities.Therefore，the author suggests that notary organizations′ status as independent legal entities should be further enforced so as to contribute to healthy development of notary business and to better protect legal rights of principals in notary activities.

Key words: notary, notary office, independent legal entity, public institution legal person, justice administration