Although no formal announcement has been made in the Chinese press (of which I am aware), it appears that sometime during the last six months, more likely before early June (2023), the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s Judicial Reform Office, or more formally the office of the SPC’s leading small group for judicial reform (最高人民法院司法改革领导小组办公室) ceased to exist as a separate entity.  Its work has been assumed by the Research Office.    The leading small group that the Judicial Reform Office supported appears to have been disbanded as well. This post provides some comments on the office, some fragments concerning its history, an explanation of the nature of the office and leading small groups, and evidence for reaching the conclusion that the office no longer exists.

Over the past 10 years, this blog has discussed or cited statements or documents issued, reports drafted, and books published by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s Judicial Reform Office.  As is visible from the photo above, I have a collection of books edited by that office, many of which I have not yet cited in this blog or my other writings. Some books contain documents, others set out authorized commentary,  and others are collections of analytical essays for the most part written by lower court judges.  I had intended to draw on some of these materials when writing something more detailed about the drafting of judicial reform measures, setting out my understanding of the drafting process.  A number of our Peking University School of Transnational Law students have interned in the Judicial Reform Office.  I will now need to wait until I am able to gather enough information about how the new system operates before writing a current and historical description.  

The offices of leading small groups are not permanently established, although this one had been in existence for almost twenty years. It is not unusual for them to be abolished and their duties assumed by permanent institutions. The temporary nature of the office may explain why published structure charts of the SPC have never mentioned the Judicial Reform Office.  The SPC has other such offices, but this one appears to be the most well-known.   Leading small group offices exist in analogous form at the local level as well. 

For those who are not aware of the system of “leading small groups,” many exist throughout the Chinese Party and government system to deal with cross-institutional matters, often involving participants from multiple Party and/or state institutions.  There seems to be a growing English language scholarly literature on multi-institutional leading small groups, mostly behind publishers’ paywalls, but this detailed summary of leading small groups and affiliated offices by Alice Miller is helpful to those without university library access.  The summary explains that “leading small group general offices have dedicated office space, a roster of personnel, and an operating budget for administrative expenses. Although they cannot implement anything on their own, they can levy work on other offices.”   My forthcoming (“neverending”) article has a description of the SPC’s Judicial Reform Office levying work on (assigning work to) other SPC offices, divisions, and institutions. 

The Judicial Reform Leading Small Group and its supporting office were established in 2006.  Although I have not been able to find the document approving its establishment, I assume that it was established to draw together a team of people to focus on judicial reform matters and to coordinate matters across multiple SPC entities,  with the lower courts, and with the related Party bureaucracies. The Judicial Reform Leading Small Group had a predecessor entity entitled the SPC Judicial Reform Research Leading Small Group (最高人民法院司法改革研究领导小组). The China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence provided institutional support for the predecessor entity.  I assume that the establishment of the SPC’s Judicial Reform Leading Small Group and its predecessor are linked to the 2003 establishment of the Party’s Central Judicial System Reform Leading Small Group (中央司法体制改革领导小组), which has (had?) members from multiple Party and state institutions. That Leading Small Group also has (had) an affiliated office (中央司法体制改革领导小组办公室).  I have not seen public mention of the Party’s Central Judicial System Reform Leading Small Group in the past year or more, so I assume it has been disbanded and its functions subsumed by some part of the Central Political-Legal Committee/Commission.

Prior to 2003, judicial reform research at the SPC was conducted and coordinated by the Research Office.  That office often deals with SPC cross-institutional matters, such as the transition to the Civil Code. So this development appears to be an instance of the SPC either going back to the “good old days” or as a former SPC judge  recently wrote about the end of a piloted judicial reform, “restoring the original condition (恢复原状).” 

 During the March 2023 meeting of the National People’s Congress, He Fan, previously mentioned on this blog,  spoke to the press about judicial reform, as a responsible person of the Judicial Reform Office (最高人民法院司法改革领导小组办公室负责人). In September of this year, public statements concerning judicial reform (in this case, the termination of the piloted reform of the four levels of the courts) were issued by a responsible person of the Research Office.  A related document issued in June (2023) did not mention the Judicial Reform Office or the Judicial Reform Leading Small Group.  When He Fan spoke at Fudan University Law School in September, he was described as a vice director of the Research Office and the former responsible person of the Judicial Reform Office (最高人民法院研究室副主任、原司法改革办公室负责人何帆博士).  So I surmise from this that sometime between March and June, the Judicial Reform Office was abolished and its responsibilities and personnel were transferred to the Research Office. 

I will be monitoring this change (to the extent possible).   Questions that come to mind include the following.  What will being located in the Research Office mean for judicial reform matters?    Will the staff take on additional tasks in addition to judicial reform matters? What will this mean for the analysis of the impact of prior judicial reforms?   What will this mean for the drafting of the sixth judicial reform plan outline?  Will this mean more or fewer staff resources?  When the plan is issued, will we on the outside of the Chinese court system notice the impact of this bureaucratic change?  And as several highly knowledgeable persons have asked me in recent weeks, how should the judicial reforms of the last ten years be objectively assessed?

_________________________________________

Many thanks to the knowledgeable persons who contributed to this blogpost. Those with additional information or corrections should contact me. My apologies to my patient followers for the long gap between blogposts. but I have spent much of the last two months revising my “endless” long article for publication, as it needed to be updated to reflect recent changes.  This change requires an additional update. I plan to do several more analytical blogposts in the upcoming months, but use more of my time putting together my research, as highlighted earlier this year.