All posts by Supreme People's Court Monitor

Susan Finder has been observing the PRC Supreme People's Court for over 20 years, and was the first person to engage in a close analysis of its operations. She taught Chinese law and other subjects in the Law Department of the City University of Hong Kong, before putting her knowledge to work in the China practice group of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, one of the first international law firms to recognize the importance of the China market. She had the good fortune to study with three of the early pioneers of Chinese legal studies: Jerome Cohen, R. Randle Edwards, and Stanley Lubman and to have many leading practitioners and legal academics among her classmates at Harvard Law School (J.D.) and Columbia Law School (LL.M). Susan Finder speaks and reads (Mandarin) Chinese and Russian and some German.
criminal law

Law-related Wechat public accounts (2017 version) (1)

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logoI’ve posted several times about law-related Wechat (微信) public accounts.  They are an important resource for those trying to understand Chinese legal developments (or their absence) and their implications or impact. For the observer, it enables us to learn about new issues (or aspects of issues) that we didn’t know existed, and (depending on the topic), hear viewpoints other than the official one, or at least read hints of dissenting views. Those with the Wechat app on their smartphone can subscribe to these public accounts but it is also possible to find some these articles through an internet search.  Note that the “Mr. Yong” about whom I wrote in 2016 still lurks on Wechat, so articles published may disappear.

Below is an incomplete guide to some useful law-related Wechat public accounts–oriented to my own interests, to be followed up when time permits.  Please contact me through the comment function or by email with additional suggestions.

Official accounts

As I’ve written before Party/government authorities use Wechat public accounts to reach out to a public that is moving away from traditional media to their smartphones. SPC policy is encouraging courts to do so.  There is some but not complete overlap between articles that appear on an institution’s website and Wechat account. There is complete overlap when more political matters are involved. Even some articles published on institutional public accounts have a “netizen” tone and popular netizen slang and images, such as this one from the Qianhai Court public account.

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You’re right, today the little editor wants to tell everyone A BIG! THING! about the Qianhai Court!

Some large institutions (Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP)), have affiliated research, publishing and educational institutions, with each having a Wechat public accounts under its auspices. There is some overlap in articles, but others are unique to the Wechat account.

The SPC has its official account: Wechat ID: ch_zgrmfy; People’s Court Daily: Wechat ID: renminfayuanbao; SPC’s research institute, The Institute for Applied Jurisprudence, Wechat ID: fayansuo; National Judicial College’s Wechat ID:falvshiyongzazhi (Wechat version of their magazine, Application of Law (法律适用) & account of its case research institute (司法案例研究院), Wechat ID: sifalyjy.  There is also an account on diversified dispute resolution, linked to the Institute for Applied Jurisprudence: 多元化纠纷解决机制 (SIFAADR). The electronic database Faxin (法信) affiliated with People’s Court Press (which itself has a Wechat account: fayuanchubanshe) also has a Wechat account, Legal_information, as do the journals 中国审判  (Id: zhongguoshenpan) and人民司法 (renminsifa). (This list is incomplete).

Officially approved accounts but not official

Some individuals affiliated with legal institutions have Wechat public accounts (presumably with the approval of their institutional leaders), among them: account of a Pudong New area judge, 法眼观察 （fygc20140416)–here is a recent article on the large number of cases in his and 19 other local courts; 法影斑斓 , account of He Fan, judge in the judicial reform office of the SPC, Wechat ID: funnylaw1978; CU检说法 (CU-JIAN), account of a local prosecutor (see an article on prosecutor’s assistants) 稻花蛙声(paddyfrog), recent article on judicial reform as seen from the bottom of the judicial food chain;法治昌明 (fazhichaming), with a recent article on the toxic system of performance appraisals.

Supervision Commission

The two must read accounts for those trying to understand what is happening with the supervision commission pilots:监察委前沿 （jianchaweiqy）and反腐先锋 （recent article on the framework for the supervision commissions published here)

Others, many previously recommended

  • Arbitration:  Wechat ID: cnarb1, account of Lin Yifei, mentioned in an earlier blogpost.  I highly recommend it to both practitioners and others interested in arbitration.
  • Labor law:Wechat ID: laodongfaku (劳动法库) (with over 200,000 followers; Wechat ID: ldfview （子非鱼说劳动法);
  • Civil law 海坛特哥 (haitanlegal), account of Chen Te, formerly of the Beijing Higher People’s Court, now a lawyer (高衫legal) [his earlier posts focused on medical law], Wechat ID: gaoshanlegal;  审判研究, Wechat ID: spyjweixin; 法客帝国， Wechat ID: Empirelawyers; 审判研究, Wechat ID: msspck.
  • Criminal law: 辩护人Defender (bianhuren_net); 辩护园地 (zrflawyer); 刑事实务, Wechat ID: xingshishiwu; 刑事审判参考 Wechat ID: criminailaw;说刑品案 (xingshishenpan)
  • International law: Wechat ID: ciil 2015 国际法促进中心
  • IP law–知产力 (zhichanli); 知识产权那点事, Wechat ID: IPR888888.
  • Aggregators–智和法律新媒体, Wechat ID: zhihedongfang; 法律博客, Wechat ID: falvboke,  法律读品， Wechat ID: lawread.

 

 

bankruptcy law, Communist Party and the Courts, shenzhen

Forthcoming individual bankruptcy legislation revealed in letter to President Zhou Qiang’s mailbox

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Screen Shot 2017-07-27 at 12.48.54 PMMost readers of this blog are unlikely to know that the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) publishes on its website responses to selected letters to President Zhou Qiang that make suggestions and give opinions. In a July 11 response, the SPC revealed that individual bankruptcy legislation is on its agenda. As I suggest below, actual legislation is likely to come later.

The letter said:

Dear Mr. Pan Dingxin:

We received your proposal, and after consideration, we respond as follows:

establishing and implementing an individual bankruptcy system is beneficial for those individuals or households who have fallen into serious financial distress to exempt some of their debts and enable them again through their hard work to achieve normal business and living conditions. Because of this, it has an important function to protect individuals and households that have fallen into financial difficulties. However an individual bankruptcy system relates to the establishment and improvement of an individual credit system and commercialization of commercial banks or their further marketization and other factors.  At the same time, the implementation of an individual bankruptcy system requires the National People’s Congress or its Standing Committee to legislate. We believe that with development and improvement of the socialist market economic, the National People’s Congress or its Standing Committee will promulgate an individual bankruptcy law on the basis of the experience with the “PRC Enterprise Bankruptcy Law.” The Supreme People’s Court will definitely actively support the work of the relevant departments of the state, and promote the implementation of an individual bankruptcy system.

Thank you for your support of the work of the Supreme People’s Court!

Supreme People’s Court

June 15, 2017

Screen Shot 2017-07-22 at 9.37.15 PM Few are aware that Shenzhen has been working on draft individual bankruptcy legislation for several years now, looking to Hong Kong’s experience and legislation, described in a recent report as a “complete” individual bankruptcy system (“完善的个人破产制度”).  The process has been going on for so long that the team (designated by the local people’s congress and lawyers association) and headed by a Shenzhen law firm partner published a book one year ago with its proposed draft and explanations.

Although Professor Tian Feilong of Beihang University’s Law School has been recently widely quoted for his statement about Hong Kong’s legal system undergoing “nationalisation,”  this is an example, known to those closer to the the world of practice, that Hong Kong’s legal system is also seen as a source of legal concepts and systems that can possibly be borrowed.  The drafting team looked at Hong Kong (among other jurisdictions) and others in China have proposed the same as well.

Shenzhen’s municipal intermediate court has completed an (award-winning) study on judicial aspects of individual bankruptcy shared with the relevant judges at the SPC.

If recent practice is any guide, individual bankruptcy legislation will be piloted in Shenzhen and other regions before  nationwide legislation is proposed, and it will be possible to observe the possible interaction between those rules and the government’s social credit system. So national individual bankruptcy legislation appears to be some years off.

As to why the SPC has a letter to the court president function, the answer is on the SPC website: it is to further develop the mass education and practice campaign (mentioned in this blogpost four years ago) and listen to the opinions and suggestions of all parts of society (the masses).  Listening to the opinion and suggestions of society are also required of him as a senior Party leader, by recently updated regulations. The regulations are the latest expression of long-standing Party principles.

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Welcome to the “Court President’s Mailbox”

 

 

Commercial law, foreign-related cases

Chinese courts & formality requirements

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apostille
Hong Kong Apostille (from internet)

In February, 2017, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued its second judicial transparency white paper, giving the official version of what the SPC has done to respond to public demands for greater transparency about the Chinese judicial system. But what are the voices from the world of practice saying? One of the issues (for a small but vocal group, foreign litigants) is inconsistent and non-transparent formalities requirements.

Chinese civil procedure legislation requires a foreign litigant to notarize and legalize corporate documents, powers of attorney & other documents. It is a time consuming and costly process, with some jurisdictions providing documents that do not meet the expectation of Chinese courts.   China is not yet a signatory to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents  (Hague Legalization Convention)   which substitutes the faster and cheaper apostille process (note that Hague Legalization Convention continues to be applicable to Hong Kong and Macau under the terms of the joint declarations and Basic Laws for each Special Administrative Region (SAR)).  About one year ago, a Ministry of Justice official published a Wechat article discussing the benefits of the Hague Legalization Convention (as well as the issues facing China in implementing it).

While this article addresses issues faced by foreign plaintiffs seeking to challenge Trademark Review and Adjudication Board decisions in the Beijing Intellectual Property Court (Beijing IP Court), according to other practitioners (who have asked not to be identified), these problems with inconsistent (and non-transparent) requirements concerning legalizing foreign corporate documentation are not limited to the Beijing IP Court, but face foreign parties appealing from intermediate courts to provincial high courts elsewhere in China. These requirements can have the effect of cutting off a party’s ability to bring an appeal, for example.

What is the solution?  The long-term solution, of course, is for China to become a signatory to the Hague Legalization Convention.  In the meantime, Chinese courts should be more transparent about their formalities requirements.  These requirements affect all foreign parties, whether they are from One Belt, One Road  (OBOR) countries or not. If China is seeking to become an international maritime judicial center or hear more OBOR commercial cases, the Chinese courts need to become more user friendly.  Courts with significant numbers of foreign cases (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen….) can consider reaching out to the foreign chambers of commerce, many of which have legal committees, to understand in greater detail what specific problems foreign litigants face (and convey their views to foreign audiences). Resolving this issue can create some goodwill with the foreign business community with relatively little effort.

 

Case law, Communist Party and the Courts, Court Reform

China’s Evolving Case Law System In Practice

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1200px-Tsinghua_University_Logo.svgI recently published an article in the Tsinghua China Law Review on Chinese case law in practice, building on several blogposts I had previously written and articles by fellow bloggers Jeremy Daum and Mark Cohen.  Many thanks are due to the persons who shared their experience and observations with me. A special thank you is due to the persons who provided detailed comments on earlier drafts.

Uncategorized

Judicial assistance between the mainland & Hong Kong at 20

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HK’s Secretary of Justice shaking hands with SPC Justice Shen Deyong

In all legal arrangements, the devil is in the details.  Important details concerning how the Hong Kong and mainland legal systems interact are found in a series of arrangements on mutual legal assistance between mainland China and Hong Kong.  An “arrangement,” for those not familiar with Hong Kong/mainland legal jargon, is a quasi-treaty document between Hong Kong and the mainland. The mainland is looking to conclude further arrangements, including in the area of criminal law.  According to 29 June report by Xinhua News:

Chinese mainland and Hong Kong are expected to confirm further judicial assistance arrangements, including those regarding criminal proceedings.

Shen [Deyong, Supreme People’s Court (SPC) executive vice president] said in an interview with Xinhua that the two sides will carry out further negotiations on judicial assistance in civil and commercial cases and will take effective measures to deal with the assistance issues in criminal cases, so the assistance arrangements cover all judicial realms between the two sides.

It appears that Justice Shen is repeating what he told Hong Kong’s Secretary of Justice Rimsky Yuen in April, 2017.

Justice Shen’s language can be traced back to the 4th Plenum Decision:

Strengthen law enforcement and judicial cooperation between the mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan,jointly attack crossborder unlawful and criminal activities.

(I discussed this in a January, 2015 conference at the University of Hong Kong.)

Likely taking the lead in negotiating these arrangements is the Hong Kong Department of Justice (Hong Kong DOJ)’s International Law Division (and I assume others as well) and its mainland interlocutors.  I assume that a team from the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs office is among the negotiators on the other side of the table (with a team from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate involved with negotiations on criminal matters.  The Hong Kong DOJ’s website lists five mutual legal assistance arrangements, with the most recent one, signed on 20 June 2017, on the Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Civil Judgments in Matrimonial and Family Cases, not yet in force.  The paper that the Hong Kong DOJ filed with the Legislative Council sets out details of the arrangement, including its scope.

This latest arrangement relates to one of many pressing practical legal issues between Hong Kong and the mainland, the large percentage of “cross-boundary marriages.” According to the Hong Kong DOJ’s consultation paper on the arrangement (the SPC did not issue a similar paper), cross-boundary marriages increased from 32% to 37% during 2009-2014 and 20-30% of divorce cases filed in Hong Kong’s family court during 2010-14 related to marriages that took place on the mainland.

This arrangement involved creative lawyering on both sides, because it involves incorporating principles from several Hague Convention to which mainland China is not a party:

  • Recognition of Divorces and Legal Separations (1970), applicable to Hong Kong, but not the mainland;
  • The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (1980), applicable to Hong Kong, but not the mainland;
  • International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance (2007), not applicable to either Hong Kong or the mainland.

Many of the previous arrangements reflected Hague Conventions to which the mainland was already a party.

Commercial lawyers should note that according to an April, 2017 statement by Hong Kong’s Secretary of Justice Rimsky Yuen, it was agreed in the form of 2016 meeting minutes to prioritize an arrangement for reciprocal judgment enforcement in civil and commercial matters involving situations other than the presence of choice of court agreements.  A consultation paper has not yet been issued for that arrangement. I surmise that the arrangement will reflect the draft Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments.  Hong Kong’s DOJ has at least one representative participating in China’s delegation.  Several senior SPC judges are also on the delegation. (The other two arrangements mentioned have already been concluded.)  It can be seen from this visual from a Chinese court’s Wechat public account, that the end of 2017 has been set as the deadline for concluding that arrangement.

Arrangements involving criminal matters are much more difficult to conclude, although several prominent commentators in Hong Kong this year have called for a rendition arrangement to be concluded. Among those include Grenville Cross, former director of public prosecutions in Hong Kong and Regina Ip, former Secretary for Security.  The issues have been discussed since the late 1990’s.  This 2005 paper submitted to the Legislative Council sets out some of the basic principles that could go into a future rendition arrangements:

  • double criminality;
  • issue of death penalty;
  • non-extradition for political offenses;
  • fair trial;
  • double jeopardy;
  • habeus corpus.

There have been academic articles on many of these topics.

It appears that the increased pressure on Hong Kong relating to the rendition arrangement is related to the drafting by the mainland’s Ministry of Justice of an International Criminal Justice Assistance Law.  (No drafts have yet been released.) Fellow blogger NPC Observer notes that although the law is intended as a comprehensive statute covering all areas of international criminal justice assistance, including the mutual recognition and enforcement of criminal judgments, official discourse labels it an anti-corruption law, likely designed specifically to hunt fugitive corrupt officials overseas.  So it appears also to be linked to Operation Skynet and the Central Anti-Corruption Coordination Group.

The status of negotiations on a rendition arrangement or other arrangements related to criminal justice are unknown.  What is known is that there have been instances, including earlier this year, in which certain mainland authorities have dispensed with the niceties of official liaison. Would having an arrangement improve matters, as Grenville Cross argues, or will “extraordinary” rendition continue to occur?

It appears that upholding an important part of Hong Kong’s rule of law, as evidenced by arrangements between Hong Kong and the mainland depends on the professionalism of Rimsky Yuen, the Secretary of Justice, his Department of Justice colleagues and their mainland interlocutors.  As he told Justice Shen and others at a meeting between the SPC and Department of Justice in April, 2017:

Cooperation [on criminal cases] is significant, but considering the difference of the two legal systems, we face challenges in civil, commercial and criminal ­cooperation. It will still take some time.

Finally, paraphrasing the Guardian, analyzing the Supreme People’s Court takes time and costs money. If you like the Monitor, please make a contribution (details here.)

 

 

administrative cases, bankruptcy law, Commercial law, Family Law, foreign courts, juvenile courts, Labor law

Welaw Monitor (微律观察) #2

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I am traveling at the moment, so my time to review articles published on Wechat is limited.  But below are some links of interest.

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Huazhen (Flower Town) emotional counseling

Oldies but goodies

Several prominent media sources, the South China Morning Post among them, are running articles on China’s clean-up of the financial sector, this one pointing to the government’s focus on privately owned insurance companies.

But those reading Wechat would have known that several years ago, China’s legal analysts had been writing  articles such as “China’s private entrepreneurs are all on their way to jail  or China’s businesspeople are either in jail or on their way to jail. 

China’s Good Samaritan case Peng Yu back in the news-  a backgrounder plus-retired SPC judge Cai Xiaoxue criticizes as does former judge & Peking U Professor Fu Yulin.

Detention Center Law draft

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) has recently issued its draft Detention Center Law for public comments (link to Chinalawtranslate.com’s translation.  The draft has caused a great deal of comment within China and those concerned about the treatment of fellow human beings in criminal detention in China should read these articles:

The MPS is drafting the Detention Center Law, but the entire legal world is opposed

10 years of calls for separating detention from criminal investigation

Professor Chen Ruihua, defects of the detention system and how it should be reformed

Professor Chen Ruihua–the detention centers should be transferred to the justice authorities

Commercial law

China’s distraught buy online counseling packages, but does China’s consumer protection legislation protect them if there are no standards for counseling?

Party discipline

A Cangzhou court president is under investigation. Is it connected to the strip search of a woman lawyer?

In CCDI hearing procedures, will evidence provided by the accused be considered?  The answer is, the scope is limited

Criminal law

Three SPC judges (likely to have been on the drafting team) unpack the asset recovery regulations (discussed in this January blogpost). It shows they looked to foreign legislation when doing so;

 20 years of bribery prosecutions, with 9 acquittals

SPC on anti-drug day, with white paper and 10 typical cases

Is it rape if the sexual contact comes after the coercion?

Supervision Commission

The first father’s day after being transferred to the Supervision Commission

Labor law

Does “remote working” in China mean the place of employment has changed?

Don’t make these 10 mistakes when terminating employees

Family law issues & property

Leta Hong Fincher’s book Leftover Women discusses the Marriage Law interpretation & home purchases.  This Wechat post sets out a chart with various scenarios related to marriage & home purchase--a very handy reference.

Bankruptcy

10 typical bankruptcy cases from Suqian, Jiangsu Province, including some real estate companies

Chongqing courts borrow concepts of personal bankruptcy from abroad when dealing with private (shadow) borrowing cases

The many inadequacies in China’s non-performing asset legislation

Judiciary

A review of the Party’s work at the SPC since the 18th Party Congress

 

 

 

 

administrative cases, bankruptcy law, Commercial law, Family Law, foreign courts, juvenile courts, Labor law

Welaw Monitor (微律观察) #1

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I am tweaking the type of content on the blog, cutting down on the long analytical blogposts.   I will provide links to reports and analysis on court and other legal matters on Wechat. I am concentrating on writing a book and some other related writing and editing projects.

It remains my hope that some followers with the financial wherewithal to do so will consider supporting (in some fashion) the blogs that are enabling the English speaking and reading public to perceive (through translation or bite-sized analysis) the “elephant” that is the Chinese legal system, among them Chinalawtranslate.com and this blog.

Commercial law

14 situations where the corporate veil can be pierced

Criminal law

Public security v. SPC & SPP on what is prostitution–does that include other types of sexual services?

SPC vice president Li Shaoping on drug crimes–relevant sections of Criminal Law should be amended, better evidentiary rules needed for drug crimes, & death penalty standards need to be improved

Hebei lawyer’s collateral appeal statement, alleges torture during residential surveillance, procedural errors (part of China’s innocence project

China’s financial crime trading rules are unclear

Defendant changed his story on appeal but the appeal court ruled he was the killer

25 criminal law case summaries from People’s Justice magazine 

Criminal procedure law

public security does not want the procuratorate supervisors in police stations

A corrupt official’s polygraph problems

Supervision Commission

Its power should be caged

Beijing supervision authorities take someone into custody, will shuanggui be abolished?

Party discipline

On confession writing

10 No nos for Party members using Wechat

Administrative litigation law

SPC issues 10 typical administrative cases, including one involving the Children’s Investment Fund

Those disputing compensation for expropriation of rural land must first apply for a ruling–land is now part of the Harbin Economic and Technical Zone (unpacking of  case #46 of #2 Circuit Court’s case summaries)

Labor law

Important study by the Guangzhou Intermediate Court on labor disputes 2014-16, with many insights & a section devoted to sex discrimination issues

Don’t make these 10 mistakes when terminating employees

Family law

Status report on family court reforms (& difficult issues for judges)

 Why it’s so hard to deal with school bullying in China

How juvenile justice should be improved (the semi-official view)

Judiciary

300 cases in 100 days–a team of young judges & expedited criminal cases

Environmental Law

Procuratorate has brought 79 public interest law suits in Yunnan (press report)

Bankruptcy

Why bankruptcy is so difficult and what needs to improve

Lawyers

 legal qualification system needs changing, the profession needs those with non-law undergraduate training

 

 

 

Commercial law, shadow lending

Private lending leaves the shadows for the courtroom

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Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang’s report to the National People’s Congress in March of this year omitted data on private lending disputes.  In 2016, Zhou Qiang stated that the courts dealt with approximately 1.5 million cases, up 41% from the year before. According to a widely cited study issued in November, 2016, private lending disputes were the leading type of  civil dispute in the Chinese courts in 2011-2015.  Data on private lending disputes in 2016 seems to be missing from year end reports by many local  courts, although the the SPC is promoting the use of big data.  The report discussed below is an exception to the general trend this year. Beijing’s Chaoyang District  Court, one the busiest basic level court in China, recently published a report on private lending cases.

Data from Beijing’s Chaoyang District, numbers of cases accepted, 2013-2016:

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2013-16, number of private lending cases accepted

The court noted that the year on year growth rate for private lending cases was 8.1% (2013-2014), 128.9% (2014-2015), 160.3% (2015-2016), with 2016 cases over five times the number in 2013. In the first four months of 2017, the Chaoyang  court accepted 8777 new cases. The court expects the number of private lending cases to increase substantially during 2017.

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2013-16 cases , amounts in dispute, in units of 100 million RMB

Cases involving large amounts in dispute are on the rise: in 2013, 21 cases involved more than 10 million RMB, 31 in 2014, 61 in 2015 and 95 in 2016, with one case in 2016 involving 96 million RMB.  Total amounts in dispute in 2016 were over 821 million USD.1f8c0005df46479e9f11

Comments by court researchers:

  • Almost 1/3 of the cases involved one company.
  • Many of the cases involve P2P platforms (no specific numbers supplied);
  • because insufficient information is supplied, courts have problems serving process;
  • many platforms circumvent the restrictions on the rate of interest by imposing intermediary fees;
  • the loan agreements are badly drafted, making it difficult for judges to decide these  cases;
  • Few cases were settled and over 20% were default judgments.

Comment

Failing to release judicial statistics about private lending on a national level does not send positive signals about the state of judicial transparency, but does indicate the way that the SPC needs to serve government strategies.  These statistics, at a local level, do send signals about the state of the economy. Their absence at a national level does not mean the underlying economic concerns have vanished. Further concerns are raised by the fact that the Shanghai Justice Bureau, as of early April, has ordered public notaries to stop notarizing private lending agreements (notarizing an agreement makes court enforcement easier

Court Reform, foreign courts, US federal courts

Chinese courts & “foreign beneficial experience”

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judge-posner-speaking-at-njc
US 7th Circuit Judge Posner speaking by videolink at National Judicial College (NJC) in 2016

Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang has been widely quoted for saying in January of this year that Chinese courts should strengthen ideological work and show the sword to mistaken Western ideas of “constitutional democracy”, “separation of powers” and “judicial independence.” What is not widely known outside China is that the relationship between the Chinese judiciary and some of the major international judiciaries (I’ll use the term “Western”) is more nuanced than it appears.  Close observation reveals the following:

  • high-level summits between major foreign and Chinese judiciaries;
  • senior Western judges speaking to or providing training to senior Chinese judges;
  • pilot projects in the Chinese courts involving foreign judiciaries;
  • SPC journals and media outlets publishing the translation of cases from and reports of major Western judiciaries; and
  • SPC judges reviewing legislation, institutions, and concepts from other judiciaries in judicial reform.

The official position on borrowing/referring to foreign legal models is set out in the 4th Plenum Decision (as I wrote earlier):

Draw from the quintessence of Chinese legal culture, learn from beneficial experiences in rule of law abroad, but we can absolutely not indiscriminately copy foreign rule of law concepts and models.

President Xi Jinping further elaborated this view on his visit to China University of Political Science and Law on May 3:

China shall actively absorb and refer to successful legal practices worldwide, but they must be filtered, they must be selectively absorbed and transformed, they may not be swallowed whole and copied (对世界上的优秀法治文明成果，要积极吸收借鉴，也要加以甄别，有选择地吸收和转化，不能囫囵吞枣、照搬照抄).

[The Xinhua report on Xi’s visit in English–“China should take successful legal practices worldwide as reference, but not simply copy them” omits the detail found in the Chinese reports.

Some examples of the way  the SPC considers the “beneficial legal experiences in the rule of law abroad”:

  1. High level summits (some of which were agreed to on a presidential/head of state level) on commercial legal issues, such as the August, 2016 U.S.-China (or China-U.S.) Judicial Summit
baer_1
August, 2016 US-China Judicial Dialogue, then Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General William Baer in foreground

“Our three talented and experienced U.S. judges discussed with senior Chinese judges and other experts topics relevant to commercial cases, ranging from case management to evidence, expert witnesses, amicus briefs, the use of precedents and China’s system of “guiding cases.” Speakers from both sides gave presentations that explored complex questions on technical areas of law. The conversations, during the formal meetings and tea breaks, were lively, candid, direct and constructive, highlighting both the similarities in and important differences between the U.S. and Chinese legal and judicial systems. I told our Chinese hosts that the views our judges expressed would be entirely their own, reflecting our separation of powers and the independence of our judiciary. Our judges displayed that independence as they weighed in on a range of issues, such as the role of precedents in interpreting statutes and the challenge of balancing public access to information while safeguarding privacy and protecting trade secrets.

Several of the Chinese participants discussed pending cases in U.S. courts involving Chinese defendants. I [William Baer] believe it was useful for us to air our differences and for our experts to exchange views on technical and sensitive areas of law. At the meeting, it was clear that although we come from different backgrounds and will not always agree, we all recognize the importance of legal reasoning and that increased transparency is a way of earning the public’s trust in the fairness and objectivity of the judicial system.”(from the DOJ website).

2.  Training of Chinese judges by foreign judges

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Dr. Matthias Keller, presiding judge, Aachen administrative court, teaching at NJC, March, 2017

A number of foreign judiciaries have in place long-term training programs with the Chinese judiciary, with the German judiciary among the pioneers.  The National Judicial College (NJC) (affiliated with the SPC) has a long-term program in place with the Germany judiciary, involving the German Judicial Academy, the German Federal Ministry of Justice & Consumer Protection, GIZ (the German international cooperation organization) and other parties, which teaches subsumption and related techniques of applying laws to facts (further explained here).  The NJC has published a set of textbooks that apply the subsumption method to Chinese law.

It is likely that close to 10,000 Chinese judges have been trained under the German program. Common sense indicates that the NJC has continued with the program because it is useful to Chinese judges.

A recent example of  the German training program is illustrated by the photo above, showing Dr. Matthias Keller, presiding judge of the Aachen administrative court giving a training course on the methodology of the application of law in administrative law to 150 Chinese administrative judges, mostly from intermediate and higher people’s courts.

3. Pilot projects in the Chinese courts involving foreign judiciaries

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Australian judges have worked with the Australian Human Rights Commission on a ‘Sino-Australia Anti-Domestic Violence Multi-Agency Putian Pilot Program’ in Putian, Fujian Province, involving judges from the SPC, Fujian Higher People’s Court, and Putian Intermediate Court.

4.  Publishing the translation of cases and reports from foreign judiciaries.

Some examples in recent months include:

  •  excerpts from Supreme Court decision Padilla v. Kentucky (published 7 February 2017), for those unfamiliar, it relates to plea bargaining and effective counsel);
  • U.S. Chief Justice Robert’s 2016 year end report on the federal judiciary;
  • U.S. federal judiciary’s strategic plan, for their takeaways for a Chinese audience;
  • Summary of a July, 2016 report on cameras in the federal courts;
  • Summary of the UK’s 2015 Civil Justice Council’s Online Dispute Resolution Advisory Group’s report on Online Dispute Resolution for Low Value Civil Claims.

5. Considering foreign legal concepts in judicial reform

Foreign legal concepts are considered by the SPC in a broad range of areas of legal reform, most of them unknown to foreign observers.  Several of the more well known examples include: plea bargaining  (see this article by an SPC judge (a comparison with the US “model” is included in Jeremy Daum’s  analysis of China’s expedited criminal procedure reform).  Last year’s policy document on diversified dispute resolution (previous blogpost here) specifically mentions considering concepts from abroad，On the ongoing amendments to the Judges’ Law (the draft has not yet been released), SPC Vice President Shen Deyong said in late April, “we need to learn from and refer to the successful practices of the management system of the judicial team by jurisdictions abroad, but they must be selectively filtered for Chinese use (要学习借鉴域外法官队伍管理的制度成果，甄别吸收,为我所用)。

Comment

A careful review of official statements, publications, and actions by the SPC and its affiliated institutions, as well as research by individual SPC judges shows an intense interest in how the rest of the world deals with some of the challenges facing the Chinese judiciary coupled with a recognition that any possible foreign model or provision will need to fit the political, cultural, economic, and institutional reality of China, and that certain poisonous ideas must not be transplanted.  [Those particularly interested could pore through two publications of the SPC judicial reform office (Guide to the Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening Reforms of People’s Courts and the Guide to the Opinions on Judicial Accountability System of People’s Courts, in which the authors discuss relevant provisions in principal jurisdictions abroad.]

Those who either are most concerned about diluting the Chinese essence of the SPC (or jealous/emotionally bruised) seem to have saved their most poisonous criticism for off-line comments, as I am unable to locate a written version of the nasty comments that a senior Chinese academic shared with me about the over-Westernization of judicial reform or other nasty comments said to have been made about research by certain SPC judges into foreign legal systems.  It is hard to know whether the persons involved are motivated by jealousy or a real belief that these measures described above will have a negative effect on the development of the Chinese judiciary.  It seems safe to say that the concerns raised in the 19th century on the dilution of the essence of Chinese culture when borrowing from the West seem to be alive and well in the 21st century.

 

Commercial law, foreign-related cases, Maritime courts, One belt one road

English language websites of Chinese courts

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The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and other Chinese courts have established or upgraded their English language websites to promote better the image of the Chinese courts to the outside world.  These websites are linked to policy goals set by the 4th Plenum, 4th Five Year Court Reform Plan, and other related documents. That can be seen from an announcement on the English language version of the Shanghai Maritime Court’s website:

Shanghai Maritime Court established a judicial translator team, aiming at having a bigger say in global judicial disputes and fostering judicial talents with a global vision.

“Establishing a professional translator team for maritime judiciary centers is a goal for building a global maritime judicial center,” said Zhao Hong, president of the Shanghai Maritime Court.

“It is aiming to serve a maritime powerhouse and laying a solid foundation for China’s Belt and Road initiative,” Zhao said.

A quick rating of the soft power of these English language websites follows below.

SPC English website

  1. SPC’s English website: http://www.english.court.gov.cn

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The SPC English website, while an improvement over the previous version, could be substantially improved.

Too much of the information is out of date, including much of the information on the landing page of the website. The “About” section, which could be useful to foreign courts, diplomats, journalists, researchers, students, etc. has an outdated description of the SPC leadership.  In the section on Resources, the SPC white papers are published as separate pages, rather than as one downloadable PDF (as some of the Chinese maritime courts have done). The scheduled hearings section is generally out of date and also provides no information as to how an interested person would attend a hearing. The link to issues of the SPC Gazette only contains the first two pages, rather than the full issue itself.  Moreover, the landing page lacks links to other English language court websites.

National Maritime Court site

China Maritime Trial: http://enccmt.court.gov.cn/chinamaritimetrial/index.html, the English language version of the national maritime court website (partial screenshot below), apparent partner to the Foreign Related Commercial website (similar look and feel) seems to be in beta mode.Screen Shot 2017-05-08 at 2.03.12 PM

Again, as with the national court website, the news on most of the landing page appears to be outdated.  The white paper page does not enable the user to download a PDF version of the report providing an overview of the first 30 years of the maritime courts.  Under the resources tab, under law & regs, are links to translations of SPC judicial interpretations relating to the maritime courts, but it is not apparent to anyone looking at the landing page. These translations are potentially a useful resource to all sorts of foreign readers. Under the resources tab, the cases menu is empty. The judgement tab links to translations of some judgments and rulings by the SPC and maritime courts, but without any headings or indications on the front page of the website.  These translations, too, are potentially a useful resource to foreign users. It does have links to the other maritime courts (some of which have English websites, but some of the links are out of date.

National Foreign-Related Commercial Cases Website

China Foreign Related Commercial Trial: http://enccmt.court.gov.cn/ChinaForeignRelatedCommercialTrial/index.html , the English language version of the national foreign-related commercial cases court website (partial screenshot below),apparent partner to the Maritime Courts website (similar look and feel) seems to be in beta mode.china foreign related trial

Again, as with the national court website, the news on most of the landing page appears to be outdated. Under the About tab is a list of courts that can accept foreign-related cases, but information about the jurisdiction of each court is missing. Under the Media Center, most of the information under Updates is irrelevant to the courts, the information under International Exchanges is missing, but the Specials has a translation of the SPC’s Belt & Road policy document (although followed by descriptions of the SPC’s cooperation with several Shanghai-area law schools).  There is no content under the Resources tab or the Judgement tab.  Translations of judicial interpretations related to foreign-related civil and commercial issues and a clearer explanation of how a foreign-related case progresses in China would be useful for the casual foreign user, including those from the Belt & Road countries.

Local court websites

Relatively few Chinese courts seem to have English language websites, but the Shanghai high court (http://www.hshfy.sh.cn/shfy/English/index.jsp) has one of them.Screen Shot 2017-05-13 at 3.24.23 PM

The Shanghai Higher People’s Court website is well organized, and relatively timely, although the litigation guide has little information to guide the foreign litigant, and too much of the information, whether cases or news, is badly edited.  The information on jurisdiction is not very helpful for a litigant or counsel, because it does not convey information on the jurisdiction of the Shanghai courts.  It appears that translators lacked understanding of who the potential users of the site were, and had English language challenges, unlike the Shanghai maritime court (see more below).

Local Maritime court websites

Several maritime courts have English language websites, with Guangzhou and Shanghai taking the lead in presenting useful and clear information to the foreign user.  The Shanghai maritime court website (http://shhsfy.gov.cn/hsfyywwx/hsfyywwx/index.html) does a good job of presenting official information clearly and in a timely manner. Screen Shot 2017-05-13 at 2.51.58 PM.pngThe Shanghai maritime court’s bilingual white paper for 2014 and 2015 is downloadable in PDF (under the Annual Report tab), the Court News is relatively timely,  The case digests are useful and calendar lists upcoming court hearings (however without information concerning how an interested person could attend them). Unusually for a Chinese court website, the Judges tab has photos of judges other than the senior leadership.  The Contact Us tab (unusual for a Chinese court) has only telephone numbers for the court and affiliated tribunals, rather than an email (or Wechat account).  Of course the information on the Chinese side of the website is more detailed (under the white paper tab, for example, a detailed analysis of annual judicial statistics can be found), and the laws & regulations tab might usefully set out maritime-related judicial interpretations, but most of the information is well organized and relevant.  Similar comments can be made about the Guangzhou maritime court’s website (http://english.gzhsfy.gov.cn/index.php).

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Comment

It appears that Judge Zhao Hong, president of the Shanghai Maritime Court (and former SPC #4 Civil Division judge) and her Guangzhou counterpart, Judge Ye Liudong, have a greater sense of what the world outside of China is interested to know about the Chinese courts than many other Chinese senior court judges. The team of judges (and other judicial personnel)  under her watchful eye does a good job of keeping the website current and useful.

Most of the court English language websites should be rated “room to improve,”  as they fail to convey useful and timely information to foreign users.Those running the website do not seem to have a sense of what the foreign audience wants to know. That could be solved in a couple of ways: looking at some foreign court websites, consulting with a web-development company focusing on the foreign market, or recruiting some foreign lawyers or law students to be a website focus group.

The websites need to convey to a foreign audience a range of useful information worded in accessible language if they are to accomplish their goal of promoting the image of the Chinese courts.  One useful piece of information that should be on a Chinese court website is a clear illustration of the steps in a civil or commercial case), aimed at individual or small business litigants.  How foreigners can use the Chinese courts to protect their rights, be they related to a contract, property, or employment relationship, is a practical issue both to the hundreds of thousands of foreign residents in China as well as those foreigners with cross-border disputes with a Chinese party.

Uncategorized

Improving China’s criminal petitioning (collateral appeals) system

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Petitioners at SPC (used with permission of Natalie Behring)

In recent months, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has been issuing one policy document after another to put some substance into the vague language of a “trial-centered” criminal justice system.  One of those documents, which the SPC issued recently along with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and Ministry of Justice, is directed at involving lawyers in the criminal case petitioning system: Opinions on Gradually Implementing Systems For Lawyers’ Representation in Collateral Appeals (Collateral Appeals Opinion).  （The document was copied to a surprising number of Party, state, and military institutions, according to this version).

The Collateral Appeals Opinion builds on a single line in item #36 of the SPC’s 4th Court Reform Plan outline:  “Promote the establishment of a system for lawyer representation in complaint appeals [collateral appeals] cases.”  As some readers may be aware, China has a collateral appeals or criminal case petitioning (刑事申诉) system, giving a convicted person and his or her family a right to petition a court to have the case re-opened and reconsidered under the Criminal Procedure Law’s trial supervision procedures.  Criminal defense lawyers are hopeful that this will lead to more involvement by the criminal defense bar, but there are many procedural and financial arrangements still to be worked out.

It seems likely that Judge Hu Yunteng, as a member of the SPC’s judicial committee (as well as others) were involved in the drafting of this policy document. As I discussed in a February, 2017, blogpost, Judge Hu Yunteng and other colleagues on the #2 Circuit Court wrote a research report analyzing criminal collateral appeals petitioners visiting the #2 Circuit Court (第二巡回法庭刑事申诉来访情况分析报告), (which does not seem to have been made public) and in the article summarized in that blogpost, advocated hearing the views of the party’s lawyer if one has been appointed and noted that making contact with the party and his lawyer was an important way to deal with these cases.

But establishing an effective collateral appeal system system involves further issues, as highlighted by one of my students in his class paper (edited).

  1. Criminal petitioning [collateral appeal] lawyers face a dilemma: they don’t have the right to investigate evidence, read case files, or even meet their clients if their clients are now prisoners and not defendants. [Comment–section 9 of the Collateral Appeals Opinion has broad language on improving this–this is a positive step, but will require more specific implementing procedures].
  2. Article 306 of the Chinese Criminal Law, which provides that criminal defense lawyers who encourage defendants or witnesses to change their testimony should be punished criminally. This  provision makes criminal defense lawyers extremely unwilling to investigate new evidence by themselves because of the high risk.
  3. According to Chinese Criminal Procedure Law, the petitioning process should be conducted in the court which makes the original judgment. [Comment–the Supreme Peoples Procuratorate and Court media outlets recently have published proposals to have these cases should be considered by procuratorates and courts in other jurisdictions.] However, this court will have strong incentive to have these cases not successfully petitioned because their bonus and assessment are based on correctness rate of effective judgments. [My comment–this is one of the many ways the judicial performance assessment system creates obstacles to justice. So to make this reform effective, this indicator must be abolished.] Combined with the fact that there is no clear rule that needy petitioners should be assigned lawyers, they may either ignore the need for lawyers, or just assign lawyers who have little interest to really petition for their clients in these cases. So in most cases in which petitioners are in poverty, they could only seek the help of private lawyers for free service.
  4. In China there is a saying that if you want to win in petitioning you have to make a big influence to make the government notice your case, and if you want the government to notice on you, you have to use some extreme rather than some “legal” ways to petition. If petitioners hire a lawyer, the lawyer has his/her own professional responsibility standard that he or she has to follow, which may sometimes conflict with the “best interest” of the client.
  5. There a gap between the economic difficulty for ordinary daily life and economic difficulty in seeking legal service. For example, a person may not meet the criteria of economic difficulty because he or she’s earning is above the living standard. However, this person can still not able to afford legal service from a law firm because ordinarily the cost for seeking criminal defense service is above a person’s salary in a whole year. Such gap and seemingly objective standard actually causes a problem and means many people in need cannot receive the aid.

Chinese criminal justice reform–as President Trump says “it’s complicated!”

Case law, Court Reform

Supreme People’s Court to require prior case search

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Screen Shot 2016-07-30 at 12.13.38 PMIn August, 2016, I wrote about how non-guiding Chinese cases are guiding the development of Chinese law.  I described what I saw as a prevalent practice in the Chinese judiciary that judges search a particular issue to see how other courts have decided a particular issue or the elements to which they have looked when deciding a particular issue. In that blogpost, I questioned whether the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) had noticed this practice.  Under a recent SPC policy document that will become effective on 1 May, this prevalent practice will become a required practice. The SPC’s Opinions on Putting a Judicial Responsibility System in Place and Improving Mechanisms for Trial Oversight and Management (Provisional) contains the following phrase:

6. All levels of people’s courts shall give full play to the professional judges’ conferences and adjudication committee’s roles in summarizing trial experience unifying judgment standards; and on the foundation of improving working mechanisms such as consulting similar cases and judgment guidance; a mechanism is to be established requiring the search of similar cases and relevant cases, to ensure a uniform judgment standard for similar cases, and the uniform application of law.

六、各级人民法院应当充分发挥专业法官会议、审判委员会总结审判经验、统一裁判标准的作用，在完善类案参考、裁判指引等工作机制基础上，建立类案及关联案件强制检索机制，确保类案裁判标准统一、法律适用统一。

This requires judges to do what many of them have been already doing –searching the case databases for prior cases that raise the same or similar issues and other issues related to the principal one(s). This principle will be applicable to judges hearing all sorts of cases–civil, criminal, administrative, enforcement, and intellectual property. It will not be evident to the reader of a Chinese judgment or ruling that searches have been done because non-guiding cases may not be cited.

Requiring a search of prior and related cases is an important step in the evolution of the Chinese case law system.  That system (as I wrote recently), supplements and informs judicial interpretations. Judicial interpretations often take years to be finalized.  National legislation (by the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee) is hopelessly inadequate for the needs of the court system.  Case law is needed to fill in the gaps.  Judges, who are assuming greater individual responsibility for their decisions, need case law for more specific guidance.

In her remarks in November, 2016 focused on intellectual property, Justice Tao Kaiyuan revealed the thinking of the SPC leadership:

The construction of the case guidance system [Chinese case law] is not to create a new legal source, but to…uncover the broader consensus of the industry, to further refine legal rules and to provide better law for society. It is also expected to lay the foundation for the drafting of judicial interpretations…The function of the intellectual property case guidance system is to enhance the predictability of the judiciary by establishing an intellectual property case guidance system to promote the unity of judicial standards.

 

 

 

Communist Party and the Courts, court reforms

China’s 19th Party Congress & Judicial Reform

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29 March meeting of Party leading group on judicial reform

Meng Jianzhu, Politburo member and head of the Communist Party Central Political Legal Committee, held a meeting in late March (photo above), to convey Xi Jinping’s message–those in leadership positions must do all possible to ensure that judicial system reform responsibility targets are basically achieved before the 19th Party congress (努力实现党的十九大召开前基本完成司法体制改革努力实现党的十九大召开前基本完成司法体制改革任务的目标). For those not familiar with Chinese political-legal jargon, “judicial system” (司法体制) means here the political-legal institutions–the courts, procuratorate, public/state security, and justice administration.   “Responsibility and targets” are also Chinese political jargon. Xi Jinping’s message dates from early January, when he highlighted this goal in instructions transmitted to the Communist Party Central Committee’s national political legal work conference.  He emphasized that the cornerstone of the judicial system reform is the judicial accountability system.  Part of the message  is that 2017 is a critical time, during which there is a “decisive battle” for deepening judicial reform, the battle intended to achieve those targets.  “Decisive battle” is also a core part of Chinese political jargon.

Since late March, Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang and other senior SPC leaders have been publicizing the target of completing judicial system reform, particularly the judicial accountability system, before the 19th Party Congress.  The SPC leadership has been doing that through meetings, both of the SPC itself (and the circuit courts) and the provincial-level courts and through SPC media outlets. President Zhou Qiang did so during a recent visit to Anhui, while on April 7, executive vice president Shen Deyong, vice-president Li Shaoping, and Political Department head Xu Jiaxin transmitted that message on a nationwide court video conference. This message is likely to be repeated in the months leading up to the 19th Party Congress.

In recent days, the SPC’s judicial reform office has been explaining these reforms to the public that reads SPC professional publications, such as the People’s Court Daily and China Trial, with some of the core content in the form of FAQs.  The reforms outline the way a post-reform court should operate. Some of the points were previously set out in the SPC’s February, 2017 judicial reform white paper.

A brief summary of the responses follows below:

  1. Why is the responsibility system the critical part of the judicial system reform (司法体制改革的“牛鼻子”)? Answer: because Xi Jinping said it, and judicial power and accountability/responsibility go together; accountability limits power.
  2. What is the responsibility of a presiding judge? Answer: take the lead in a case, by outlining the hearing of the case, allocating responsibilities, taking the lead at trial and in post-trial discussions, and in cases of significant differences of opinion, submit the case to either a specialist judges’ committee or judicial committee.
  3. How should the system of court president’s and division chief’s hearing cases be improved?Court leading cadres have multiple identities, including Party administrative responsibilities, and they must concurrently plan, announce and implement Party construction and adjudication [substantive] work, and for those who are quota judges, they should hear some cases too. Those cases should depend on a person’s background and strengths and should be major, difficult, complicated, or new cases which are representative.
  4. What is the relationship between judicial teams and court divisions? Answer: A Judicial team is comprised of judges, judge assistants, clerks and other auxiliary personnel, formulated respective lists of responsibilities of judges, judge assistants, and clerks, established the new judicial work mechanism with judges at the core and the team members cooperating with each other closely,
  5. When judges are randomly assigned to cases, how should the judge in charge of the case be determined? Answer: random selection should be primary, supplemented by assigned cases.
  6. How should the reform of having judges sign judicial documents [judgments/rulings, etc.] be understood? Answer: Judges who hear cases should sign their judgments and senior court leaders should no longer review or sign the judgments on the cases when they had not been personally involved.
  7. How should the reform of having a conference of professional judges be understood? Answer: judges in different substantive areas can organize committees to provide their views to other judges on problematic issues, reducing the number of cases referred to the judicial committee.
  8. In courts where there are many judges, how large should the conference of professional judges be? Answer:basically, it depends on the profile of the cases and the number of judges.
  9. What type of management and oversight responsibilities will a court president have besides hearing cases? He (she) will monitor judgments and rulings, sometimes recommending the matter go the judicial committee (see further details in the white paper).
  10. What type of management and oversight responsibilities will a division chief have in addition to his responsibilities hearing cases? As delegated by the court president, a division chief can review matters such as extending a defendant’s period of arrest or detention, or other compulsory measures or extend the period for submitting evidence.
  11. When judicial power is delegated down in judicial reform, how can it be monitored? The old system of having senior judges sign off on judicial documents, including ones that they had not heard, and they are also forbidden from approving cases in an indirect way, such as giving oral instructions. Senior judges should be working on a macro, not micro level.
  12. How can the judicial committee reform move forward reliably? Answer: from now on, the focus of the work of judicial committees should change from discussing individual cases to summarizing experience, and discussing major cases, with exceptions (foreign affairs, social stability, etc. (see the analysis in the white paper).

Comments

These questions and answers reflect the challenges the SPC faces in moving the Chinese court system (including its own operations) away from the traditional model that fuses judicial authority with traditional Chinese [Communist Party] administration.  The post-reform concept of the judiciary is a more professional judiciary that gives judges greater professional autonomy (and therefore can retain the sophisticated talent that is leaving for law firms) but retains control in specified areas. How successful will these reforms be in moving courts and judges away from old patterns of behavior remains to be seen. It seems to be happening in at least some of the pilot courts (from my discussions), but that does not mean these will be successful in other less sophisticated areas.  Presumably, the SPC’s judicial reform office is monitoring the pilots in a more systematic way.

The reasons for stressing the importance of accomplishing these reforms by the 19th Party Congress are assumed, not explained. I understand it as intended to show that the judicial system reforms that have been undertaken in recent years are correct, have accomplished what they were intended to accomplish, and are effective in improving China’s judicial system.  I expect that the system described above is reflected in the redrafts of the People’s Court Organizational Law and the Judges’ Law.  To what extent will these reforms (apparently accompanied by increased political study) be able to retain the talent currently in or being recruited into the courts?

 

Case law, Elderly law, rights

Veneration rights litigation in China

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tombstore states “veneration rights”

In honor of the Qingming Festival, one of the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC) media outlets, Faxin, published a set of cases on veneration rights (祭奠权).  The cases were previously published in Selection of People’s Court Cases (人民法院案例选, edited by the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence (Applied Jurisprudence Institute) (one of the research institutes affiliated with the SPC).  This publication is one of the authoritative case collections of the SPC. Litigation related to the honoring of deceased relatives has been on the increase in recent years, a sign of fundamental changes in Chinese society.   Among the cases in this category are:

 

  • rights to be informed about the death of a relative or friend and the location of burial;
  • rights related to burial or storage of ashes; and
  • rights relating to tombstones, with a number of cases involving a sibling omitting the names of others on a parent’s tombstones.

This is one of the many areas where there is a blank space in Chinese law, but where litigation is on the rise.  The principal case highlighted was a 2007 case tried in Beijing’s Fengtai District People’s Court, published in a 2009 collection:

Cui Yan v. Cui Shufang.  Cui Yan was the granddaughter of a deceased couple, Cui Jinshu and Li Runhua.  She sued her aunt, Cui Shufang, for failing to inform her about the death of her grandmother (the grandfather passed away many years before).  The court ruled that the aunt did not have a legal obligation to inform the granddaughter, although informing her would be in accordance with good morality, but Cui Yan did not visit or care for her grandparents during their lifetime and that was more significant than saying farewell to the departed.  The facts of the case are familiar to people around the world–the grandmother left her apartment to her daughter in her will, excluding her other children.  The aunt, in defense of what she had done, alleged that Cui Yan’s parents had abused the couple.

Huang Bin,  researcher of the Applied Jurisprudence Institute, who edited the case, noted that the case raised three questions: whether Chinese law protects the right to venerate ancestors; if it constitutes a right, then what constitutes a violation of that right; and conversely, what circumstances do not violate that right.

Huang noted that Chinese law does not protect that right, currently, but in his view, it should, looking to legal theory to support his argument and analogizing it to the right of privacy.  A breach should be covered by the elements of tort law:  infringement of rights protected by law;  fault; damage to the infringed party; an causation. Although these cases occur frequently, the editor remarked that few people research this. It raises issues such as: who should enjoy this right, what type of notice should be required, how to calculate damages, and exemptions.  The editor suggests looking at resources outside the court, such moral reasoning, administrative assistance, mediation and so on, in order to save court resources.

Although statistics on the number of cases are not available, a quick search of one of the judgment databases revealed about 100, arising primarily in Beijing, Shanghai, and Zhejiang.  According to a recent press report, a Beijing court recognized veneration rights of a bereaved father. The father had sued his son in law for damages in the amount of 100,000 RMB for removing his daughter’s ashes without informing him and seeking the right to determine where the ashes should be stored. The court ordered the son in law to pay 20,000 RMB damages to his father in law for inflicting mental distress, compensate him for the cost of a portrait of his daughter, but said the widower had the right to determine where the ashes should be stored.

Brief Comment

The drafting of China’s Civil Code is underway and unbeknownst to the world outside of China, whether the Civil Code should recognize veneration rights is part of the discussion.  The fact that these cases are on the increase is significant for what is means for changes in Chinese society, how ordinary Chinese people are using the courts, and the place of traditional customs and morality. These cases are one of many in which Chinese judges find themselves having to deal with claims to individual rights in the absence of clear law.

 

 

 

administrative cases, Case law, circuit courts

#2 Circuit Court’s case guidance on administrative cases

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tour2_pic1

In August, 2016, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) #2 Circuit Court issued a sset of 30 case summaries (literally important points, 案例要旨）on administrative cases, selected from the many administrative cases heard in the first year and a half of operation.  The #2 Circuit Court hailed it as a new type of case guidance (审判新指南) in March, 2017. This type of case guidance is mentioned in my forthcoming article in the Tsinghua China Law Review.  Although this document does not have any formal status (at least yet) in the universe of SPC case guidance, it has been approved at a conference of administrative judges in Liaoning, Heilongjiang, and Jilin, and the rules it sets out should be considered highly persuasive to courts in those three provinces.

It is likely that these cases will provide background material for a more comprehensive judicial interpretation of the Administrative Procedure (Litigation) Law than the one issued shortly after the amended law was promulgated.  Some of these cases have also been incorporated into the SPC’s 10 model #2 Circuit Court cross-administrative region commercial and administrative cases. The document does not include a summary of the underlying facts, but some of the full case reports are found elsewhere.  Each case (most relate to land disputes) provides a glimpse into the behavior of local government vis a vis ordinary Chinese citizens and companies, the (limited) scope for review of administrative action under Chinese law, and the unusual legal issues in the review of administrative action. Brief commentary follows each case summary restatement.  on 1 April, Wang Cailiang, the deputy chair of the All China Lawyers Association, published Wechat commentary on administrative litigation and judicial reform.  Highlights of some of his comments follows the case summaries.

#5. Fan Chunsheng v. Heping District, Shenyang Government: issue–compulsory administrative act and administrative compensation case:

If the administrative organ illegally demolishes the plaintiff ‘s house, the compensation standard must not be lower than the compensation standard that the plaintiff may obtain according to the administrative compensation scheme. The plaintiff’s request for compensation must be upheld by the people’s court in accordance with the amount that can be obtained through the compensation scheme.

[The full text of the case is found here. It involved a man whose home was demolished. The court determined that the parties had not come to an agreement about compensation and the District Government had not gone through proper procedures to expropriate Mr. Fan’s property. The facts are similar to some of the model demolition cases released by the SPC several years ago.]

#16 Siping Haifeng Garden Real Estate Development Co. v, Siping (Jilin) People’s Government: issue–are government meeting summaries actionable?

A government meeting summary that is considered to be an internal government document setting out possible approaches in dealing with certain problems, but without a real impact on the rights and obligations of the parties, will be considered an administrative act that is not actionable. However, if the government uses the form of a meeting summary to make an administrative decision with legal effect, it is considered an actionable administrative action. The “externalization” of the meeting summary is necessary for the meeting summary to be actionable. Even if the contents of a meeting summary has been notified or delivered to the relevant parties, but if it remains a description of possible approaches, rather than an effective administrative decision, it will be considered a non-actionable administrative act with no real effect on the parties’ rights.

[The rule here indicates that is how the document is being used, rather than the form of document that determines whether a court can review it.]

#19, Zhang Qinghai v. Benxi Municipal Government–issue: is a decision by a provincial level government to expropriate land actionable

According the provisions of Article 30 (2) of the Administrative Reconsideration Law and Reply of the SPC to a question concerning  Article 30(2) of the Administrative Reconsideration Law, a decision by the State Council or provincial level governments concerning the expropriation of land and a related administrative reconsideration decision is considered acts of final decision and is not within the scope of cases than can be accepted under the Administrative Litigation Law.

[A brief search of some other jurisdictions reveals that this type of decision can be challenged under the law of some other jurisdictions: United States federal and state law and German law, for example].

#23, Han Yawen v. Zhaoyuan County, Heilongjiang People’s Government–issue: is an agreement not to petition (息诉罢访协议) actionable

An agreement not to petition between an administrative agency and a petitioner is an agreement with rights and duties under administrative law between an administrative agency with a petitioner to maintain social order and stability, in the public interest and in furtherance of administrative functions, according to the localism principle, the relevant government provides money or other benefits and should be considered a type of administrative agreement. When a people’s court accepts this type of case, it should review the legality of the content of the agreement according to law.

[Further background on the case found here. the SPC rejected Han’s application for retrial because the statute of limitations had lapsed).  (A form of agreement found here.  This 2011 book chapter mentions that these agreements could be challenged in theory, but the inclusion of this principle shows that petitioners often seek to challenge them, at least in the northeastern provinces.]

A summary of remarks by Wang Cailiang, on whether the amended Administrative Litigation Law, in effect for almost two years, will be able to make progress:

  1. On government interference:  “I can responsibly say that most grass-roots courts consciously or unconsciously play the role of a subordinate department of the local government…. in recent years when local governments promote the redevelopment of shantytowns, major projects, development zones, with which the local court also either actively or passively cooperates, there exists a conflict between the citizens right to administrative review (reconsideration) and litigation. Moreover, the Government on the one hand needs the court to give support in implementing the project; the other hand, the government wants to spend less money.  It creates an enormous obstacle to hearing administrative cases fairly and equitably.
  2. More hard work needed to resolving social conflicts (contradictions): in 2016, there were high numbers of administrative litigation and petitioning, with old and new issues, caused by housing condemnation, land expropriation, administrative enforcement…Affected parties sought to protect their rights through the courts,  and 225,000 administrative cases were accepted by the courts, with a clear increase of cases against county governments accepted by intermediate courts, and even the SPC had accepted over 2000 by the end of September. This has to do with the amended Administrative Litigation Law and clarity that county governments are the parties to expropriate land [under the relevant legislation], which means that the rate at which government is losing cases is rising, although the SPC hasn’t released 2016 data.  In July-August, 2016, documents issued by the State Council General Office and the SPC on administrative agencies responding to law suits has improved matters.  Also, under the new law, the reconsideration organ is the joint defendant with the original authority, so this changes the venue for these law suits, giving affected parties more hope…In 2016 there were major issues with demolition disputes after courts determine that administrative action by the court is illegal, some local governments reject the decisions and refused to take the initiative to correct the error, failure to make timely compensation to the plaintiff is very common…Even in cases where people should be prosecuted for criminal violations, not one has…
  3. There are too many wrongly decided cases–reasons–besides interference, professional competence of judges, traditional way of thinking of courts…
  4. Few administrative cases are resolved on time (he can tell this although the SPC has not released statistics),
  5. Some problems remain with the case registration system.
  6. He suggests proceeding on the rule of law route–promoting judicial reform and cross-administrative region courts; open up public opinion, so administrative litigation proceeds in the sunshine; having the SPC curb its tendency to issue judicial interpretations [this is entirely impractical, in my view]; and send the judges out of the case registration division and back to the trial divisions.
  7. He summarizes, but does not comment on remarks made by Meng Jianzhu (Meng), head of the Communist Party’s Central Political Legal Committee at a meeting on 29 March of the Leading Small Group on Judicial Reform with senior members of the political legal leadership (head of the Ministry of Public Security, presidents of the Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate, Minister of Justice, etc.) that the targets of judicial reform (he means the political legal institutions, not just the judiciary) need to be achieved before the 19th Party Congress and admitting there have been difficulties in implementing some judicial reforms. Meng directed the authorities to research the problem and come up with practical solutions.
  8.  Wang concludes by saying that the specific goals in this round of judicial reforms have never been made public–how far it is to go, so the public does s not understand them, so it lacks societal supervision, understanding and support–the effectiveness of a reform that lacks public participation naturally will be reduced, and we must be concerned about this. (然而，这一轮司法改革的具体的目标在开始至今并没有公开，以致要走到哪一步社会不了解，从而缺少社会公众的监督与理解、支持。一个缺少公众参与的改革，效果必然大打折扣，这是我们不能不担心的.)

Judging from a limited sample (such as the report done by the #2 Circuit Court), at least some of the research and analysis that is being done within the political legal institutions is insightful and practical. But as President Trump has said about health care,  “It’s an unbelievably complex subject, nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” The same can be said about reforming the Chinese judiciary.

 

administrative cases, big data, Communist Party and the Courts

Signals in Zhou Qiang’s 2017 report (Part 2)

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This blogpost continues the analysis in Part 1, which analyzed the first several sections of Zhou Qiang’s work report to the National People’s Congress, concerning court caseload, social stability and criminal punishment, and the courts serving to maintain the economy.

Most people who have commented (outside of China) on Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang’s March, 2017 report to the National People’s Congress (NPC) didn’t have the patience to read (or listen) much beyond the initial section, which mentions the conviction of Zhou Shifeng as indicating that the courts are doing their part to crack down on state subversion.  It appears to be another in a series of colorless government reports.  But for those with the ability (or at least the patience) to decode this report, it provides insights into the Chinese courts, economy, and society.

imgres-14
©

The report, which went through 34 drafts, is intended to send multiple signals to multiple institutions, particularly the political leadership, in the months before the 19th Party Congress.

According to a report on how the report was drafted, the drafting group (which communicated through a Wechat group to avoid time-consuming bureaucratic procedures) faced the issue of how to summarize the work of the People’s Court in 2016 correctly.  The guidance from President Zhou on the report–it must:

  1. fully embody the upholding of Party leadership, that court functions (审判职) must serve the Party and country’s overall situation;
  2. embody the new spirit of reform, showing the (positive) impact of judicial reform on the courts and show the ordinary people what they have gained;
  3. not avoid the mention of problems, but indicate that they can be resolved through reform.

Underneath these political principles, the operation of a court system with Chinese characteristics is visible.

Guaranteeing people’s livelihood rights & interests

The following section is entitled  “conscientiously implement people-centered development thinking, practically guarantee people’s livelihood rights and interests.” It summarizes what the courts have been doing in civil and administrative cases, but it also signals their perceived importance in this national report.

Civil cases

President Zhou Qiang noted that the Chinese courts heard 6,738,000 civil  (民事) cases, an increase of 8.2%.  Although he did not define what he meant by civil cases, under Chinese court practice, it refers to the type of cases under the jurisdiction of the #1 civil division (see this earlier blogpost):

  1. Real estate, property and construction;
  2. Family;
  3. Torts;
  4. Labor;
  5. Agriculture;
  6.  Consumer protection; and
  7. Private lending.

On labor cases, the report mentioned that the courts heard 473,000 labor cases. This is a slight decrease from 2015 (483,311) (although the report did not do a year on year comparison). The report signalled that the SPC is working on policy with the labor authorities on transferring cases from labor mediation, labor arbitration, to the courts. This was signaled previously in the SPC’s policy document on diversified dispute resolution.  Articles on both the SPC website and local court websites have signaled the increasing difficulty of labor disputes, and the increase in “mass disputes.”

As explained in this blogpost, labor service disputes, relate to an “independent contractor,” but more often a quasi-employment relationship, governed by the Contract Law and General Principles of Civil Law, under which the worker has minimal protections. This year’s report did not mention the number of labor service cases. In 2015, the Chinese courts heard 162,920 labor service cases, an increase of 38.69%.

There was no further breakdown on the number of other types of civil cases, such as private lending or real estate cases.  For these statistics, we will need to await any further release of big data by the SPC. As blogposts in recent months indicate, private lending disputes are on the rise in economically advanced provinces and bankruptcy of real estate developers remains a concern.

This section also mentions criminal proceedings against illegal vaccine sellers, although the topic may be more appropriately be placed with the rest of the criminal matters, but likely because it is an issue that drew widespread public attention.

Family law

Echoing language in recent government pronouncements, the section heading mentions protecting marriage and family harmony and stability. The report mentions that the courts heard 1,752,000 family law cases in 2016, with no year on year comparison with 2015.  The report mentions that the SPC has established pilot family courts (as previously flagged on this blog).

Administrative disputes

First instance administrative disputes totaled 225,000 cases, a 13.2% increase over 2015, but a tiny percentage of cases in the Chinese courts. The report highlights developments in Beijing and Shanghai (they are being implemented in Shenzhen, although not mentioned), to give one local court jurisdiction over administrative cases.  According to the statistics (in Beijing, at least), this has led to a sizeable increase in administrative cases.  The report also mentions the positive role that the courts can play in resolving condemnation disputes (this blogpost looked at problems in Liaoning).

Hong Kong/Macao/Overseas Chinese cases

As mentioned by Judge Zhang Yongjian, the report mentions that the courts heard 19,000 Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Overseas Chinese related cases, and handled 11,000 judicial assistance matters with the three greater China jurisdictions.  The report also mentions the recently signed arrangement between the SPC and Hong Kong judiciary on the mutual taking of evidence, a development that seems to have escaped the notice of the Hong Kong legal community.

Military related disputes

Unusually, the report mentioned that the local courts heard 1678 military-related cases and have developed systems for coordination between the civilian and military courts.  These developments have been analyzed further in a blogpost on the Global Military Justice Reform blog.

Strictly governing the courts and institutional oversight

The following two sections of the report give a report on how the courts are upholding Party leadership, increasing Party construction within the courts, internal Party political life, and political study, all of which are in line with recent developments. Although these are stressed, this does not mean that professional competence is less valued.  The increasing caseload,  higher expectations of litigants, particularly in commercial cases, and increasing technical complexity of cases means that the SPC is in fact taking measures to improving professional capacity of the courts.  This section also mentions courts and individual judges that have been praised by central authorities and 36 judges who have died of overwork.

On anti-corruption in the courts, the report mentions that 769 senior court officials have been held responsible for ineffective leadership, 220 have been punished for violations of the Party’s Eight Point Regulations. The SPC itself had 13 persons punished for violations of law and Party discipline (offenses unstated), 656 court officials were punished for abusing their authority, among whom 86 had their cases transferred to the procuratorate.

On institutional oversight, the report signals that the SPC actively accepts supervision by the NPC, provides them with reports, deals with their proposals, and invites them to trials and other court functions. On supervision by the procuratorate, the report revealed that the SPC and Supreme People’s Procuratorate are working on regulations on procuratorate supervision of civil and enforcement cases, a procedure sometimes abused by litigants.

2016 and 2017 judicial reforms

2016

On 2016 judicial reform accomplishments, the following were highlighted:

  1. circuit courts;
  2. case filing system;
  3. diverse dispute resolution;
  4. judicial responsibility;
  5. trial-centered criminal procedure system;
  6. separation of simple from complicated cases;
  7. people’s assessors‘ reform;
  8. greater judicial openness;
  9. more convenient courts;
  10. improving enforcement (enforcement cases were up 31.6% year on year), including using the social credit system to punish judgment debtors.

2017

The report mentions that among the targets for the courts is creating a good legal environment for the successful upcoming 19th Party Congress.  That is to be done through the following broad principles:

  1. using court functions to maintain stability and to promote development (for the most part mentioning the topics reviewed earlier in the report);
  2. better satisfying ordinary people’s demands for justice;
  3. implementing judicial reforms, especially those designated by the Party Center;
  4. creating “Smart” courts; and
  5. administering the courts strictly and improving judicial quality.

This last section mentions implementing recommendations required by the recent Central Inspection Group’s (CIG) inspection and Central policies applicable to all political-legal officials, before focusing on the importance of more professional courts, and improving the quality of courts in poor and national minority areas.

A few comments

It is clear from the above summary that the content of President Zhou Qiang’s report to the NPC is oriented to the upcoming 19th Party Congress and the latest Party policies. It appears that no new major judicial reform initiative will be announced this year.

It is likely too, that the selective release of 2016 judicial statistics in the NPC report also relates to messaging in line with the upcoming 19th Party Congress, although we know that the SPC intends to make better use of big data.  We can see that overall, the caseload of the courts is increasing rapidly, including institutionally difficult cases (such as bankruptcy and land condemnation), which put judges and courts under pressure from local officials and affected litigants. In the busiest courts, such as in Shanghai’s Pudong District, judges will be working extremely long hours to keep up with their caseload, and the impact of new legal developments. It appears (from both the report and the results of the CIG inspection) that judges will need to allocate more time to political study.  How this will play out remains to be seen. We may see a continuing brain drain from the courts, as we have seen in recent years.

 

big data, Commercial law, Communist Party and the Courts, One belt one road

Signals in Zhou Qiang’s 2017 NPC Report (Part 1)

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Most people who have commented (outside of China) on Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang’s March, 2017 report (on 2016 work) to the National People’s Congress (NPC) didn’t have the patience to read (or listen) much beyond the initial section, which mentions the conviction of Zhou Shifeng as indicating that the courts are doing their part to crack down on state subversion.  It appears to be another in a series of colorless government reports.  But for those with the ability (or at least the patience) to decode this report, it provides insights into the Chinese courts, economy, and society.

imgres-14
©

The report, which went through 34 drafts, is intended to send multiple signals to multiple institutions, particularly the political leadership, in the months before the 19th Party Congress.

According to a report on how the report was drafted, the drafting group (which communicated through a Wechat group to avoid time-consuming bureaucratic procedures) faced the issue of how to summarize the work of the People’s Court in 2016 correctly.  The guidance from President Zhou on the report–it must:

  1. fully embody the upholding of Party leadership, that court functions (审判职) must serve the Party and country’s overall situation;
  2. embody the new spirit of reform, showing the (positive)impact of judicial reform on the courts and show the ordinary people what they have gained;
  3. not avoid the mention of problems, but indicate that they can be resolved through reform.

Underneath these political principles, the operation of a court system with Chinese characteristics is visible.

A partial decoding of the report reveals the points listed below (to be continued in Part 2).

1. Caseload on the rise

The caseload in the Chinese courts continues to rise significantly, at the same time that headcount in the courts is being reduced.  Diversified dispute resolution (the jargon outside of China is alternative dispute resolution) is being stressed.

  • SPC itself is dealing with a massive increase in its cases, 42.6% higher than 2016, and that number was significantly higher than 2015.
    Screen Shot 2017-03-16 at 4.07.25 PM.png
    2016, SPC cases accepted 22,742, up 42.3%, concluded 20151, 42.6%, Circuit Cts #1 & 2 accepted 4721 cases in last 2 yrs, resolved 4573 cases

     

The statistics on the SPC’s caseload are not broken down further, but are understood to be mostly civil, commercial, and administrative.  It appears from a search of one of the case databases that not all of the SPC judgments or rulings have been published (a search of one of the judgment databases showed 6600+, and only some of the death penalty approvals). It seems also that the database does not include SPC cases such as the judicial review of certain foreign and foreign-related arbitration awards.

Although the report does not focus on the reasons for the massive increase in SPC cases, careful observation reveals the following reasons:

  • establishment of the circuit courts, hearing more cases and ruling on applications for retrials;
  • increase in the number of civil and commercial cases with large amounts in dispute;
  • SPC itself has implemented the case registration system; and
  • changes in law giving litigants rights where none previously existed.

The report also mentioned that 29 judicial interpretations were issued (some analyzed on this blog) and that 21 guiding cases were issued.  Model cases and judicial policy documents were not separately set out, although some were listed in the appendix to the SPC report distributed to delegates.

Lower courts

23,030,000 cases accepted by lower courts, up 18%, cases resolved, 19,773,000; amounts in dispute up 23%

The pie chart below sets out the statistical distribution of cases heard by the Chinese courts:

 

Screen Shot 2017-03-16 at 9.59.06 PMThe pie chart of cases heard, enforced and closed in 2016 shows:

  • about 60% of those cases were civil, commercial, or intellectual property cases;
  • 6.41% criminal cases,
  • 3.40% parole, sentence reduction cases;
  • almost 26% enforcement cases,
  • .03% state compensation cases,
  • petition or application for retrial, .91%;
  • and 1.66% administrative cases.

Although the stress in Zhou Qiang’s report is placed on law and order, in fact many more cases in the Chinese courts are civil and commercial rather than criminal.

2. Social stability, public order, law & order are major concerns

Criminal cases have a prominent place in the report, although the data reveals a slight increase in the number of cases  (1.5%), involving the conviction of 1,220,000 people, down 1%. (Note that many minor offenses are punished by the police, with no court procedures).

Although the report mentioned the Zhou Shifeng case (state security) and criminal punishment of terrorist and cult crimes, it did not release statistics on the number of cases of any of these crimes heard.  Corruption cases totaled 45,000 cases, involving 63,000 persons.  Violent crimes (murder, robbery, theft) cases 226,000. Drug cases: 118,000, a significant decrease from 2015. 2016 cases of human trafficking and  sexual assault on women and children totaled 5335, while telecommunications fraud cases in 2016 totaled 1726.  Only 213 cases involving schoolyard bullying were heard and the SPC revealed that the drafting of a judicial interpretation on the subject is underway. The report highlighted some of the well-known criminal cases, including the insider trading case against Xu Xiang and the Kuai Bo obscenity cases to illustrate and criminal law-related judicial interpretations to signal that the courts are serving policy needs in punishing crime.

The same section described what has been done in 2016 to correct mistaken cases, highlighting the Nie Shubin case (reheard by Judge Hu Yuteng and colleagues) as an example.  The report revealed that the local courts retried only 1376 criminal petition cases, likely a tiny fraction of the criminal petitions submitted.

3. Maintain economic development

As President Zhou Qiang indicated, the way that the Chinese courts operate is Party/government policy-driven (they must serve the greater situation). Serving the greater situation meant, in 2016, that the Chinese courts heard 4,026,000 first instance commercial cases, a 20.3% increase year on year.  He also mentioned the 3373 bankruptcy cases analyzed in an earlier blogpost. Of those 4 million commercial cases, 1,248,000 involved securities, futures, insurance, and commercial paper and 255,000 real estate cases and 318,000 rural land disputes. Other implications are discussed below.

This section of the report devoted a paragraph to a topic discussed last year on this blog: the courts serving major government strategies, including One Belt One Road, the Yangtze River Belt, and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei coordinated development.

Green development , intellectual property (IPR), property rights (of private entrepreneurs), serving maritime and major country strategy, socialist core values, judicial solutions to new problems and cross-border assistance also merited mention in this section.

  1. The courts heard 133,000 environmental and natural resources cases, with Fujian, Jiangxi and Guizhou courts designated as experimental environmental courts.  While public interest environmental and procuratorate brought (environmental) cases were mentioned, statistics were not set out.
  2. First instance IPR cases totaled 147,000, with several cities (Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu) establishing IPR divisions to take cases across administrative boundaries. This section mentioned the Jordan trademark case and the IPR courts.
  3. On protection of property rights, the report mentioned some of the documents intended to protect private entrepreneurs discussed on this blog, as well as 10 model cases.
  4. On maritime and cross-border cases, the report mentions the judicial interpretations on maritime jurisdiction (discussed in this blogpost), intended to support the government’s maritime policy, including in the South China Sea.  The Chinese courts heard only 6899 commercial cases involving foreign parties (this means that of the 2016 19,200 civil and commercial cases mentioned by Judge Zhang Yongjian, most must have been civil) and 16,000 maritime cases. The report again mentions making China a maritime judicial center, further explained in my 2016 article.
  5. On the relevance of socialist core values to the courts, that is meant to incorporate socialist core values into law (although they should be understood to have always to be there) and to give the Langya Heroes special protection under China’s evolving defamation law.
  6. Judicial solutions to new issues included internet related issues, including e-commerce cases, internet finance cases, and theft of mobile data; the first surrogacy case, and judicial recommendations to Party and government organizations.
  7. In the section on international cooperation, President Zhou Qiang revealed that fewer than 3000 cases involving mutual judicial assistance were handled. The bureaucratic and lengthy procedures for judicial assistance in commercial cases has long been an issue for lawyers and other legal professional outside of China.  This is likely to change (in the long run, as Chinese courts increasingly seek to obtain evidence from abroad).  US-China dialogue on bankruptcy issues and cooperation with One Belt One Road countries (cases involving these countries are increasing significantly), were also mentioned here.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

foreign investment law, foreign-related cases, One belt one road, Uncategorized

Supreme People’s Court & foreign-related disputes

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Judge Zhang Yongjian, chief judge of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s #4 Civil Division (responsible for foreign, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan related commercial issues) previously featured on this blog, gave an interview to Legal Daily on the sidelines of the NPC meeting. This quick blogpost sets out some of the useful information from the interview:

He provided some data on the number of cross border cases:

  • Total number of foreign-related cases of all types (first, second instance, retrial, enforcement) heard and resolved: 25900, up 9.38%, among which 1061 were criminal,19200 civil and 3629 administrative, and about 2000 enforcement cases. The civil and commercial cases increased almost 11% compared to last year and accounted for about 75% of all foreign-related cases.
  • Total number of Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan related civil and commercial cases closed: 27053 civil and commercial cases, Judge Zhang said that they accounted for 85% of all cases involving “greater China.”

The cases coming before the Chinese courts differ from the old trading and joint venture disputes, with many more cases involving demand guarantees, international factoring, private equity funds, stock options in companies listed overseas listed companies, cross-border telecommunications (fraud?), bonded trade disputes.

(As this observer has previously predicted), the number of cases related to One Belt One Road (OBOR) is increasing relatively quickly, while the number involving the United States, Britain, Germany, are decline. Cross-border project contracting and international logistics related cases are on the increase, as well as foreign-related intellectual property cases and maritime cases. Although Judge Zhang did not say so, it appears that many of these disputes are related to Chinese companies going out as well as OBOR, and may reflect inadequate documentation of the projects. The increase in maritime cases is linked to the ongoing decline in the shipping industry.  Chinese maritime courts have heard cases related to the Hanjin bankruptcy as well as large numbers of cases involving ship crew.

Challenges for the Chinese courts in hearing cross border cases:  encountering many “blank spaces” in Chinese legislation; conflict of laws with neighboring countries.  Other ongoing bottlenecks for Chinese courts in hearing cross-border cases–service of process to overseas parties; obtaining evidence crossborder; determining facts that have occurred abroad; determining and applying foreign law.

Judge Zhang highlighted the solutions for the Chinese courts in dealing with the difficulties:

  • SPC issuing judicial interpretations and other judicial guidance;
  • establishing a case guidance and reference system for the lower courts, including model cases, guiding cases, and selected cases (i.e. as selected by the SPC), to guide and limit judges’ discretion.
  • The SPC selecting some commercial cases (relating to free trade zones, internet finance, cross border investment financing) with an international impact as a model.
  • To enable correct and just hearing of cases, the higher and lower courts should be in touch in a timely matter and establish a system for supervision before, during and after a case. [What this means for judicial autonomy in hearing cases and the appeal system is not said.]
  • On the goals for 2017, those include establishing an OBOR dispute resolution center (推进设立“一带一路”争端解决中心的建立，促进“一带一路”建设). This is likely linked to the May, 2017 OBOR Conference to be held in Beijing.  Judge Zhang did not further specify, but it seems unlikely to mean establishing China’s own investment dispute resolution center. Perhaps this means increasing the role of Chinese courts in hearing cross-border cases involving OBOR jurisdictions.

Judge Zhang mentioned that he and his colleagues in 2017 have a variety of difficult issues that will be the subject of judicial interpretations or policy documents. This observer hopes that they will find it appropriate to consult the international legal community when drafting the following judicial interpretations that are on their agenda:

  • Enforcement of foreign civil and commercial judgments (possibly related the the Judgments Convention being negotiated under the auspices of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, and in the near term, to the enforcement of judgments through mutual judicial assistance treaties;
  • cross-border guarantees;
  • labor issues for ship crew;
  • damages in marine environmental cases;
  • jurisdiction in foreign-related cases, particularly civil and commercial cases;
  • judicial review of arbitration (this has been signalled for at least two years).

Judge Zhang signalled that they want to establish an English language website on foreign-related civil and commercial matters.  It is hoped that this new website will post information in a more timely manner than the current SPC English language website. An (unsolicited) recommendation is to hire an expatriate editor (similar to Xinhua and other Chinese media outlets) to assist in delivering content that meets institutional requirements and interests the foreign user.

All these developments relate back to one sentence in the Fourth Plenum Decision:

Vigorously participate in the formulation of international norms, promote the handling of foreign-related economic and social affairs according to the law, strengthen our country’s discourse power and influence in international legal affairs, use legal methods to safeguard our country’s sovereignty, security, and development interests.

 

 

 

administrative cases, Case law

How the Supreme People’s Court uses case law & other sources when it guides the lower courts

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As my fellow blogger, Jeremy Daum and I have written, China’s guiding case system has captured the attention of the world outside of China, likely due to a combination of the special status accorded guiding cases by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) and the impressive efforts of Stanford Law School’s China Guiding Cases Project.  One of the ways that the SPC supervises and guides the lower courts is by publishing handbooks to aid the lower courts in quickly determining the applicable legal rules in a system in which a comprehensive legal code is the ideal but not the reality. One of those handbooks is the set of books pictured above, the Collection of the Supreme People’s Court’s Judicial Rules  (Collection of Judicial Rules) (最高人民法院司法观点集成), published by the People’s Court Press, now in its 2nd edition. A closer look at the Collection of Judicial Rules provides insights into sources of law used by the SPC, and China’s evolving case law system, including the place of guiding cases

As described by Judge Liu Dequan, the general editor, the sources include;

  1. Judicial interpretations;
  2. the spirit of judicial policy (from the speeches of the SPC president and vice presidents responsible for the substantive area);
  3. responses (答复) issued by the various divisions of the SPC;
  4. opinions (意见), answers, (解答)，trial case handling guidance (审判办案指南) research opinions of the research office (研究意见) and other guidance issued by the various divisions of the SPC and speeches given by the heads of those divisions at national court conferences (these blogposts summarized the takeaways from some court conferences);
  5. guiding cases, SPC cases, SPC bulletin cases.
  6. Supplemented by the principal views of SPC judges and writings of SPC judges.

Below are samples from one of the volumes on administrative law:

A party that disputes compulsory measures imposed by the family planing authorities to freeze property, limit personal freedom etc. can file administrative litigation (#22)

The response cites a 1996 judicial interpretation, supplemented by a selection from a book by Judge Jiang Bixin and Liang Fengyun,  that confirms that the courts may accept such cases.

The act of issuing a transcript and diploma by a higher education institution is within the scope of administrative litigation (#42)

The editors cite the 2014 administrative litigation trial case handling guidance and several SPC bulletin cases. The case guidance provides that when higher education institutions issue transcripts, diplomas, and expel students, they are acting under authority delegated by law, and so those are administrative acts which a party may challenge under administrative litigation law.

The editors then set out the bright line rule (要旨) set out in several SPC Bulletin cases: Tian Yong v. Beijing Science & Technology University (1999) (re-issued as guiding case #38) and Yang Baoxi v. Tianjin Clothing Technical School (2005);

Then they cite several administrative trial guiding cases, including Wu Huayu v. Central China Agricultural University.

If there is a conflict between laws, the hearing of the case must be suspended while a response to request for instructions is received from the SPC (#351)

The editors set out a 1996 response of the SPC (made after consultation with the State Council Legislative Affairs Office) to the Fujian Higher People’s Court concerning the exploitation of geothermal water resources.

The editors then set out a SPC Bulletin case, Fujian Hydropower Design Institute disputes an administrative penalty decision by the Provincial Land & Mining Department, summarizing the bright line rule (as above). The editors then supplement the cases with an excerpt from the publication by Judges Jiang Bixin and Liang Fengyun mentioned above.

Comments

The sources used by the SPC judges in compiling the handbook may (or may not) be surprising to a foreign observer–such as the speeches by court leaders and various types of responses by SPC divisions that have no publication requirement. These sources appear to reflect SPC practice and do not seem to be consolidated into some type of legal rules.  While the SPC’s transparency is far greater than before (especially for a person with historical perspective), there are still significant gaps that face lawyers, litigants, not to mention researchers.

The SPC sees its case law system (still evolving) as a supplement to judicial interpretations.  The drafting process for judicial interpretations is a slow one (take the example of the demand guarantee judicial interpretation).  It can easily take several years for an interpretation to be finalized, particularly in the area of civil and commercial law, because SPC judges working on these interpretations must take into account comments from a large variety of interested parties. The rules set out in judicial interpretations must be able to stand the test of time and adjustments to government policies.  Case law is seen as filling in the gaps.  But as can be seen from the excerpt from the handbook above, and recent comments by SPC Vice President Tao Kaiyuan, the 77 guiding cases, while having an anointed place in that case law system, are one part.  Justice Tao Kaiyuan’s comments also reveal that case law, including guiding cases, is seen as being useful for the drafting of judicial interpretations:

The construction of the case guidance system [Chinese case law] is not to create a new legal source, but to…uncover the broader consensus of the industry, to further refine legal rules and to provide better law for society. It is also expected to lay the foundation for the drafting of judicial interpretations.

Tao Kaiyuan pointed out that the Supreme People’s Court Intellectual Property Case Guidance Research (Beijing) base is creating a guidance system for intellectual property cases with SPC Guiding Cases, cases published in the SPC Bulletin and cases published by the SPC’s Case Research Institute [under the auspices of the National Judicial College], and issued model (typical) cases, are an interactive mutually complimentary whole (是相辅相成、互为补充、互联互动的整体). The function of the intellectual property case guidance system is to enhance the predictability of the judiciary by establishing an intellectual property case guidance system to promote the unity of judicial standards.

Year end 2016 judicial statistics that will be issued in President Zhou Qiang’s report to the National People’s Congress will document that the number of cases, particularly civil and commercial cases, in the Chinese courts continues to rise at a rate that far exceeds China’s GDP.  Case law, including guiding cases, is one source of legal rules that Chinese judges consider when dealing with those cases, whether deciding whether a case should be accepted, seeking to mediate a case, deciding a case, or enforcing a court judgment or ruling.

 

 

Case law

Supreme People’s Court Gazette enters the 21st century

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landing page for the SPC Gazette’s electronic platform

Recently the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) took another step in making its Gazette accessible to a mass audience, by establishing an electronic platform accessible from the Supreme People’s Court website:  www.gongbao.court.gov.cn.

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Screen shot of SPC landing page with link to the SPC Gazette

What benefits does the Gazette webpage have for the user? They include easy:

  1. Access to the cases published in the Gazette.  As this blog has highlighted earlier. cases published in the Gazette, both  selected judgments (裁判文书选登), cases decided by various trial divisions of the SPC and reflect their views on certain issues, and cases (案例), model cases submitted by the local courts (through the provincial high courts), which have been reviewed by the various trial divisions of the SPC, are considered quite persuasive, although not as authoritative as guiding cases. Those can be accessed through a full text search of the term being researched.
  2. Checking of which lawyers frequently practice at the SPC, through searching “selected judgments.”
  3. Following the careers of SPC judges. Below is a search for Huang Songyou, the disgraced SPC vice president:screen-shot-2017-03-05-at-9-50-05-pm
  4. Searching prior SPC reports to the NPC for key words, such as ”judicial reform“ or “state security.”
  5. Searching historical judicial statistics, for certain terms–second instances returned results, while “death penalty review” did not.
  6. Searching of judicial interpretations and judicial documents (policy and other SPC documents not considered to be judicial interpreations.)