Monthly Archives: September 2018

administrative cases, Children's rights, Communist Party and the Courts, judicial transparency

Socialist core values & Chinese judicial interpretations

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socialist core values poster in a Shanghai hotel

I write on socialist core values and Chinese judicial interpretations with some trepidation.  Not because I have trouble deciphering socialist core values, but because the two documents core to the analysis are available in summary form only, as at least one source has mentioned that the SPC document is classified. This blogpost is based on those summaries, primarily on the summary provided by Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Research Office (研究室) head Jiang Qibo of its five-year work plan (2018-2023) to incorporate fully socialist core values into judicial interpretations (关于在司法解释中全面贯彻社会主义核心价值观的工作规划（2018-2023).)  in 2015 the SPC had issued a general document on socialist core values.

As explained below, it appears that the SPC is both “serving the greater situation” by implementing in the courts the Party’s plan to integrate socialist core values in plans to legislate and amend legislation（社会主义核心价值观融入法治建设立法修法规划） while at the same time seeking to deal with many of the difficult legal issues that face it.

For those unfamiliar with the SPC’s Research Office, (as I am writing in yet another academic article stuck in the production pipeline),  2007 SPC regulations place it as the gatekeeper for reviewing proposals, examining and coordinating the drafting of judicial interpretations.  It also acts as the liaison when other central institutions forward their draft legislation and judicial interpretations to the SPC for comments, coordinating the SPC’s response with other divisions and offices, with a knowledgeable person noting that “the view of the Research Office prevails.”

The critical language in the Party’s plan for the SPC and its judicial interpretations appears to be: “judicial interpretations should be amended and improved in a timely manner according to the demands of socialist core values” (司法解释，要按照社会主义核心价值观的要求，及时进行修订完善).  This language appears only in the SPC’s summary of its own plan and not in the earlier reports on the original plan.

The SPC’s approach to implementing the Party’s plan was to pull together all the demands on and recommendations to it to draft judicial interpretations–some in Party documents, others in recommendations from the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee (presumably its Legislative Affairs Commission), proposals from NPC and CPPCC delegates, a collation of proposals concerning judicial interpretations from the lower courts, plus  the needs of the courts (as seen from the SPC), and the SPC’s other drafting commitments.

The areas of law that Jiang Qibo are relevant to a broad range of persons, from commercial lawyers to environmentalists, to those interested in the rights of women and the elderly. Some involve new areas for judicial interpretations while others require expanding old ones.

Jiang Qibo classified the interpretations into five broad categories:

  1. The category of patriotism, dedication, and harmony includes the following (important) judicial interpretations. It appears the #1 Civil Division will take the lead on these, and I trust will engage in public consultation:
  • Amending those on the right to reputation and the right to honor to include better protection for heroes and martyrs (as to be expected and was flagged in a recent blogpost); See some earlier translations here on the SPC’s statements on the earlier heroes and martyrs litigation;
  • amending and improving judicial interpretations related to the Marriage Law and family law, etc.  I recommend this article by Professor Yang Lixin of Renmin University (formerly an SPC judge) for his forthright analysis of the state of Chinese family law and current important issues (children born out of wedlock, same-sex marriage, wills, surrogacy, etc);
  • improving the systems for trying family-related cases (Judge Du Wanhua is overseeing the pilot projects in this area); improve the legal protection of juveniles; prevent and punish school bullying, etc. (the SPC has been doing research on improving juvenile law and preventing school bullying for several years).
  • amending/improving labor dispute judicial interpretations (these fill in the holes in labor legislation)  As has been discussed earlier on this blog, the number of labor cases in the courts has increased.

2. The category of equality, justice, democracy, and rule by law:

  • Improve protection of property, especially non-public property, in criminal law. (See last year’s blogpost on this). Recent developments in China have seen greater use of confiscation procedures, and as this blog highlighted earlier this year, property protections are inadequate.
  • Improve the rules for trying property condemnation cases, to better protect the rights of those whose property is being acquired.
  • A judicial interpretation on hearing disputes over the use of personal information is needed (project approval for this has been given). Also work will start on a judicial interpretation on the protection of wild animals and protected species (see NPC Observer’s article on a related case), and the enforcement judicial interpretation is also to be amended (because of the SPC’s campaign to improve enforcement).

3. In the category of justice, friendship, and cooperation are the following:

  • an interpretation on self-defense (recently in the news in China in several cases, such as the Yu Huan case and a case in Kunshan);
  • also improving the SPC’s2016  policy document on judicial legal assistance (legal aid as arranged by the courts).

4. On setting out further details to the broad principles in the General Part of the Civil Code (also Judge Du Wanhua continues to be involved with this):

  • amending the contract law judicial interpretations;
  • amending the judicial interpretations on the criminal punishment production and sale of fake and shoddy goods;
  • amending the judicial interpretation on food and drug safety crimes;
  • criminal punishment of fraudulent litigation (just released);
  • rules on hearing cases in which the government is a contracting party, and issuing a judicial interpretation at an appropriate time.

5. On prosperity, creativity, and greenness:

  • amending the judicial interpretation relating to villages, to provide services for rural revival;
  • amending real estate related judicial interpretations;
  • amending finance related judicial interpretations, to ensure national financial safety and prevent a financial crisis (the criminal law in this area is quite unclear);
  • amending the judicial interpretations on bankruptcy law;
  • improving judicial interpretations related to intellectual property law (IP law), see more below;
  • amend the judicial interpretations related to environmental protection;
  • amend the judicial interpretations on maritime trade and other maritime matters.

On the intellectual property front:

  • The SPC will look into punitive damages for patent, copyright, and other IP infringement so that in serious cases punitive damages can be imposed and having the infringer responsible for the costs to the rights holder of stopping the infringement;
  • in the next five years, if the legislation is not amended it will work on using market value as a basis for damages;
  • it will work to better coordinate between administrative and judicial enforcement of IP rights;
  • it will work on guidance on civil cases that arise because of monopolistic conduct;
  • protection of plant species;
  • it will look into new issues related to unfair competition cases, also in trade secret  cases, and new issues related to civil trademark disputes;
  • research evidence issues in IP cases, look into having IP technical investigators involved in litigation;
  • research jurisdiction in IP and unfair competition cases;
  • look into preliminary preservative measures in IP cases (mentioned in an earlier blogpost).

The ones listed in the plan will be prioritized in the project approval process for judicial interpretations (see two earlier blogposts on what that is and the topics on that list)

 

judicial transparency

The hunt for Chinese court white papers

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Winnie the Pooh & Piglet hunting for Woozles ©Ernst Shepard

In recent years, many Chinese courts have prepared and published white papers and research papers on specific topics with detailed statistics and analysis, a major step forward in transparency from the early 1990s. This blog has analyzed or mentioned several of them.  Many, on topics that include sexual assault on minors, real estate disputes, drug crimes, home renovation, and labor disputes remain to be discussed.  Releasing these reports to the general public is part of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s efforts to promote greater openness. (Some research papers are for internal use only, but this post discusses only those cleared for public release). SPC President Zhou Qiang has mentioned increasing the courts’ release of white papers as one of the SPC’s many achievements in his reports to the National People’s Congress and its standing committee.  The efforts to promote the use of white papers date back to at least 2009 when the SPC issued a policy document on judicial statistics that stated:

Establish a public release system for judicial statistical data. Increase the publicity of judicial statistical information, hold a press conference to release judicial statistical information on a regular basis, actively explore the establishment of a white paper system for judicial statistics….

As those of us looking closely at the operation of the Chinese courts know,  court white papers and research reports are often based on statistical data from various internal sources and contain analysis by judges who have dealt with these cases.  Although these white papers and research reports are valuable for their statistics and related analysis, they are not always published on the internet, such as on the website of the court that issued the report. For the conscientious researcher, it is annoying  (not to mention a waste of valuable time) to find articles on court websites and local media reporting on the public release of a white paper or research report, but without a link to the full-text report.   I am facing this issue yet again in trying to do research for an essay (on a non-sensitive topic) to be included in a book edited by one of the members of the SPC’s International Commercial Expert Committee.

For example:

Tianjin high court’s 2018 Belt & Road white paper, report here 

As to why the full-text of white papers or reports are not published on the internet, reasons could include:

  1.  Anxiety on the part of the leaders of the court regarding the consequences of public distribution of these reports among the affected institutions, including companies, Party/government authorities, and higher courts (This rationale was advanced by an experienced judge whose court had not publicly released white papers until recently),
  2. Court leaders see the submission of the white paper or research report to their higher level court (or to local government) as having fulfilled their duty to have issued it and are not concerned about or aware that its public release is important.
  3. The court website infrastructure lacks sufficient capacity to host the paper.

For those courts with the infrastructure to host PDF or html versions of their white or research papers,  the Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Xiamen maritime courts provide good examples–all post white papers on the front page of their websites (or on their Wechat public accounts), making them easily accessible to the researcher.  I would expect that Zhao Hong, the president of the new Shanghai Financial Court,  formerly the president of the Shanghai Maritime Court, would carry on the practice of her former court. Both the SPC and the Shanghai higher and intermediate courts have something to learn from these maritime courts （see this white paper hidden on a Shanghai higher court webpage), not to mention many other localities.   Many of the research reports prepared by SPC divisions appear to be published in division publications, such as Reference to Criminal Trial (刑事审判参考） or Guide to Foreign-Related and Maritime Trial (涉外商事海事审判指导). The Shenzhen intermediate people’s court recently issued a bilingual white paper on bankruptcy, seemingly only available directly from the court.  Why the court leadership required a bilingual version but did not make it widely available is a mystery yet to be solved.