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.
Commercial law

Result of the “3 nos policy” when Chinese companies arbitrate abroad

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f6ac33117179fe35848072c3a7ed0c69With more and more Chinese companies doing business abroad or with overseas companies, more and more Chinese companies have agreed to arbitrate outside of China.  According to a recent blogpost in one of the best known Chinese arbitration blogs (written by Lin Yifei, formerly on the staff of the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration), some Chinese companies adopt the “three nos policy” when a foreign party initiates arbitration proceedings abroad: no participation in the foreign arbitration proceedings, no cooperation with the foreign arbitration proceedings, and no enforcement of the foreign award.

The thinking is: foreign arbitration is troublesome, so it’s best to focus on making the offshore award worthless, or (alternatively) we’re going to lose the case anyway, so it just means an additional enforcement procedure.

Do the Chinese courts support this approach?

A ruling from the Suzhou Intermediate Court in 2014 in the case of Brambill Limited (Brambill) v. Zhangjiagang Huafeng Heavy-duty Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd (Zhangjiagang Huafeng) set out in the blogpost provides an answer. “Three nos” companies should expect that Chinese courts will enforce offshore arbitral awards.

In 2014, Brambill filed an enforcement action in the Suzhou Intermediate Court to enforce an ICC (Hong Kong) award, under the Arrangement Concerning Mutual Enforcement of Arbitral Awards between the Mainland and the HKSAR  The dispute related to  a sales contract, in which Zhangjiagang Huafeng failed to make delivery.  In June, 2010, Brambill Limited filed a request for arbitration.  Although Zhangjiagang Huafeng was served with Brambill’s pleadings, informed of its right to file an answer, appoint an arbitrator, give views on the location and language of the arbitration, the Chinese company failed to respond. The case was heard in Hong Kong and arbitral tribunal members in the ICC case were: my former colleague Peter Thorp (chair), Professor Shen Sibao (Executive Director of the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration and former Dean of the law school of the University of International Business in Beijing), and Mr. Hee Theng Fong.

In June, 2012, the tribunal issued its award, which was served on Zhangjiagang Huafeng.  The Chinese company did not apply to set aside the award within six months, but opposed enforcement on the grounds that the arbitration clause was unclear. The Suzhou court ruled that Zhangjiagang Huafeng should have raised the issue of the invalidity of the arbitration agreement during the arbitral proceedings or applied to set aside the ICC award in Hong Kong within six months of issuance. According to the Suzhou court, there were no public policy reasons to refuse enforcement of the ICC award, and so the Suzhou court ruled to enforce the award, and required the Chinese company should pay Brambill’s enforcement fees.

(In honor of Hong Kong’s Arbitration Week 2015)

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Reform

China’s judicial legislation takes first step on road to complete overhaul

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Vice President Shen Deyong
Vice President Shen Deyong

Implementing the judicial reforms in China requires an overhaul of China’s current basic legislation, the Judges Law (法官法）and the Organizational Law of the People’s Courts (人民法院组织法). The Supreme People’s Court (the Court) media outlets have recently reported that on 23 October the first meeting was held of the drafting group to amend the Judges Law, with Court Vice President Shen Deyong chairing the meeting, and senior Court judges in attendance.  The report notes that the focus is on securing the independence of the courts (but having them remain firmly under Party control). Judge Shen mentioned that issues under consideration include: criteria for the selection of judges; protection for judges undertaking their duties; evaluation of judges, judicial assistants, salaries scales, retirement and insurance, and rewards and punishments.

Part of the preparatory work for amending the Judges Law is to include field research and surveys, particularly of front-line judges in the judicial reform pilot areas.  The drafting group will designate some local courts and some universities/research institutes to assist with the drafting.  The drafting of the Judges Law will need to be consistent with the principles of the amendment of the Organizational Law of the People’s Courts and the work of the Central Leading Group on Judicial Reform.  This summer, the Court convened an initial meeting to discuss amending the Organizational Law of the People’s Courts.  How to reorganize the Chinese judiciary and what professional status Chinese judges should have and work under will affect how judicial reforms are implemented and less directly, more fundamental issues concerning China’s economy and society.

Court Reform

What are China’s new circuit courts doing?

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#1Circuit Court Building
#1 Circuit Court Building

In January, 2015, the Supreme People’s Court (the Court) established circuit courts (actually circuit tribunals) in Shenzhen and Shenyang.  Are they doing anything more than serving as places to divert petitioners from Beijing?  In September I visited the #1 Circuit Court in Shenzhen to have a look for myself.

The #1 Circuit Court It is located in the former Shenzhen Intermediate Court building, but an annex contains the reception area for petitioners and separate area with courtrooms.  Visitors, including petitioners, enter through the entrance in the photo below. The burdensome security checks that Chinese lawyers have complained about for many years still operate, with security personnel (and the system under which they operate) who seem to be unable to distinguish between professional visitors and persons who may be a security threat.

The circuit courts are not separate level of courts, but a branch of the Court, but have a narrower jurisdiction, as set out in the regulations governing their operation, primarily civil, commercial, and administrative.

Part of the goal of the circuit court is to implement the personnel and structural reforms that the Court is promoting.  There are 12 judges, plus 12 judge’s assistants, who come from areas outside the circuit.  The twelve judges are  profiled on the Court’s website.  The judges do not serve in fixed collegiate panels, but each serves as presiding judge, with cases assigned randomly, and hearings in appeal cases focused on the issues in dispute on appeal, rather than a re-opening of the entire dispute.

The #1 Circuit Court occasionally “rides circuit”– hears cases outside of its headquarters.

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Caseload

As of early September, the #1 Circuit Court had accepted close to 500 cases.  The hearing that I attended was an appeal from the Hainan Higher People’s Court, a dispute over shareholding between a Hebei and Beijing companies.  The presiding judge was Gao Xiaoli, formerly of the #4 civil division, who often writes and speaks on arbitration, private international law, and judicial review of arbitration.  She, like her other colleagues is highly experienced.

Petitioners

As described in a blogpost by Ivy Chen, a former intern with the circuit court:

In the Court, the interns first review the petitioners’ materials. If these materials fulfill the procedural requirements, the petitioners then would talk to the judge’s clerks and the clerks would decide whether to recommend the case for a further review by the judges. The judges would make the final decision of whether to grant a retrial. The clerks in the Court were actually sitting judges from the High People’s Court and Intermediate People’s Court from provinces other than Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan. My job there included: 1. to review the cases filed by petitioners and decide whether their cases have fulfilled the procedural requirements stipulated in the procedure laws, and whether the cases belong to the 11 categories of case stipulated to be handled by the Court; 2. to assist the clerks to document each petitioner’s case; and 3. to review the letters written to the Court, categorize the letters by their subject matter (criminal, civil, administrative or non-litigation), geographical associations and procedural status, and decide whether the letters should be resent to the High People’s Court of Guangdong, Guangxi or Hainan, or be resent to the SPC in Beijing or stay with the Court for the judges to review…..during the work, people realized that many petitioners have difficulty in finding good legal assistance and then the Court set up place for lawyers to offer free legal advice to the petitioners in late July.

Window to the world or window dressing?

The  #1 Circuit Court isn’t window dressing, although it seems to receive foreign delegations regularly.  What it does is provide the Court with more headcount to hear more cases, pilot  structures promoted in the judicial reforms in a environment under the Court’s direct control, seek to improve the quality of its legal policy role by research into local legal issues and greater interaction with the local legal communities.  Shenzhen is often on the leading edge in China in legal matters, particularly in commercial law.

Commercial law, foreign-related cases

Comments on cooperation between the US and China on judicial reform

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One of the lesser known outcomes of Xi Jinping’s trip to the United States is the commitment by the United States government to work with China on judicial reform.

The official White House press release (mirrored in statements by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) states:

the United States and China commit to conduct high-level and expert discussions commencing in early 2016 to provide a forum to support and exchange views on judicial reform and identify and evaluate the challenges and strategies in implementing the rule of law.  U.S. participants are to include leading members of the U.S. judiciary, U.S. government legal policy experts, and officials from the Departments of Commerce and Justice and the Office of the United States Trade Representative.  Chinese participants are to include officials from the Central Leading Group on Judicial Reform, leading members of the Chinese judiciary, and Chinese government legal policy experts.  This dialogue is to result in an improvement in the transparency and predictability of the business environment.  This dialogue does not replace, duplicate or weaken existing regular bilateral legal and human rights dialogues between the United States and China.

This statement deserves more attention from the legal community than it has received so far.  Some brief comments below:

  • It is good for China and the rest of the world for Chinese judicial reform to be the subject of inter-government dialogue aimed at positive results.  Whatever improvements eventually result from this dialogue will eventually benefit both Chinese and foreign litigants.
  • The Communist Party’s Central Leading Group on Judicial Reform is explicitly named as one of the participants from the Chinese side.  It approves major Chinese judicial reforms (the text of the 4th five year judicial reform plan evidences that), so it makes sense for it to have one or more representatives involved in future dialogue (although technically it is not a “judicial institution.”
  • It is likely to include leading members of the Supreme People’s Court, but is unclear what other institutions will be involved.  Do the legal policy experts of the Chinese government also include the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office?
  • The question is what issues the dialogue will focus on.  It is clear that the intent is to focus on technical legal issues, but which ones?  Perhaps the Law Committees of Amcham China and Amcham Hong Kong can draft a list of issues for the US government agencies involved in the dialogue to consider.
  • Among the issues I would nominate would be those related to better integrating the Chinese courts with its counterpart institutions in the rest of the world.  The Supreme People’s Court One Belt One Road (OBOR) opinion (see my earlier blogpost) mentioned that China was looking to expand bilateral and multilateral mutual judicial assistance arrangements, for better delivery of judicial documents, obtaining evidence, and recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments.  My fellow blogger, Mark Cohen, recently wrote about the issues relating to the problems of litigants in the US courts seeking evidence relating to Chinese counterfeiters. The number of cases in foreign courts involving Chinese commercial activity is likely to increase and better judicial assistance structures should be put in place.
  • Related to the previous issue would be improving the international standing and influence of the Chinese courts (as the OBOR opinion states is a goal) in a positive way, by being a more neutral forum for cross-border disputes.  Statements such as the one made by Chinese judges in the Huawei vs. InterDigital case (pointed out by Mark Cohen in a recent presentation) do not give foreign litigants confidence that their cases will be heard fairly in Chinese courts.  The judges wrote: “Huawei is good at using antitrust laws as a counter-weapon, which other Chinese companies should study…. domestic enterprises [should] break through technical barriers in the development of space for their own gain, through bold use of antitrust litigation.”

If you have further issues to add to the list, please use the comment function!

Communist Party and the Courts

Judge Xi Xiaoming and his vanishing assets

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Although Chinese judicial reforms include establishing a trial-centered judicial system that provides better protection for human rights (including property rights), under Party disciplinary regulations senior Party officials (such as former Supreme People’s Court Vice President Xi Xiaoming, subject of an earlier blogpost),  often have property confiscated or other property punishments imposed at the conclusion of Party disciplinary proceedings. This means that confiscation of assets occurs before an official’s case is transferred to the procuracy and heard by the courts.  According to the official statement on the disposition of Judge Xi’s case:

(He) was ordered to make restitution of certain amounts that were in violation of discipline;the issues related to his suspected crimes and related amounts are transferred to the judicial organs for handing.责令退赔违纪款；将其涉嫌犯罪问题及涉款物移送司法机关依法处理.

The wording  is similar to official statements issued in relation to other senior officials investigated by the CCDI and the same language is to be found in reports on the dispositions of local Communist Party disciplinary investigations.

Han Jinping, director-general of the CCDI’s case coordination department and a former judge in the #2 criminal division of the Supreme People’s Court, provided more details on the CCDI’s authority to impose property punishments in a July, 2015 interview she gave to Chinese Central Television.

(A 2014 profile of Ms. Han reveals that she was involved in guiding some of the lower courts in recent high profile corruption cases and has been involved in some of the thinking behind China’s initiatives to pursue corrupt officials abroad).

She mentioned that more than half of the assets recovered since the beginning of the anti-corruption campaign have been confiscated by the CCDI itself (RMB 20.1 billion) and handed over to the national treasury, while 18.6 billion has been recovered through the formal legal system.  Ms. Han explained that according to applicable rules (set out below), CCDI is authorized to:

  • confiscate assets (没收);
  • recover assets(追缴);
  • order restitution (责令退赔)

relating to violations of Party and government rules and orders.

She noted the following rules guide their authority:

Related to the rules she cited are additional regulations issued by the General Offices of the Central Committee and the State Council on the handling of money and property management in criminal cases earlier this year, focused on coordination between departments (and less explicitly with CCDI).

Assets of officials determined by CCDI to have violated Party rules are confiscated in closed proceedings (subject to Party Committee approval at the relevant level), but the handling of the property must be in accordance with the above procedures. The official under investigation does not have access to counsel, and there does not seem to be a procedure by which a third party can oppose the property punishments imposed by CCDI. ( 2014 regulations of the Supreme People’s Court, by contrast, give third parties that right when property punishments are imposed in criminal proceedings.) For the family members, friends, and associates of an official subject to CCDI proceedings, it appears that any recourse they have is very limited.  A good proportion of the assets recovered in the current anti-corruption campaign have been recovered by skirting the procedural protections of the persons involved under the Chinese Criminal Procedure Law.  It appears to be a modern day version of the traditional legal system’s punishment of officials.

(Please use the comment function if there are errors in the above analysis.)

 

 

 

 

Court Operations, Court Reform, court reforms

Educating Chinese judges for new challenges

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National Judges' College
National Judges’ College

Buried in the depths of documents issued in the course of this year are the outlines of the way the Supreme People’s Court (Court) intends to create a corps of judges in which litigants, domestic and foreign, have faith will provide justice.  The many measures set out in the 4th Five Year Judicial Reform Plan raise the competency bar for judges.  A more litigious and rights conscious public, the increasingly complex economy and greater number of cross-border transactions and interaction, as well as smaller number of judges to hear more cases means that judicial training is an important part of of preparing Chinese judges for the new normal.

The broad outlines of the Court’s plans for judicial training are set out in the following documents:

  • the Court’s latest 5 Year Training Plan, for 2015-2019, issued in June, the framework document;
  • the September 17, 2015 Communist Party Central Committee/State Council document on the open economy, calling for improving foreign-related competence in the judiciary; and
  • the September 25 White House press release, in which the  United States and China commit to conduct high-level and expert discussions commencing in early 2016 to provide a forum to support and exchange views on judicial reform and identify and evaluate the challenges and strategies in implementing the rule of law.

The training plan

The training plan is linked to the 4th Plenum and 4th Five Year Judicial Reform Plan Outline, the Communist Party Central Committee’s five year training plan for Party cadres (as stated in the plan itself, which means that judges are treated as a type of Party cadre), the Court’s regulations on judicial training,  as well the Court’s 2013 policy document on creating a new judicial team (队伍) in the new situation. Team (or work team) derives from “classical” Party terminology (as Stanley Lubman highlighted in an article last year)).

The Training Plan stresses ideological, ethical, and professional training, for judges and other judicial personnel.  Ideological education is required to be a part of the required training described below, so that judges will comply with Party discipline (a modern day counterpart to Confucian cultivation of virtue) and oppose the osmosis of mistaken Western values (抵制西方错误思想观点的渗透).

Who’s being trained

The focus of the training is:

  • Court leadership, particularly at the basic level. The training plan requires senior personnel of lower level courts to participate in training organized by the the Court and higher people’s courts, with newly appointed basic level and intermediate court management to participate in training session within their first year in office, and higher people’s courts to organize training for at least 20% of lower court senior management annually;
  • Front-line judges, particularly those in the basic level courts:  continuing legal education, with a minimum of 10 days a year,  and in the 2016-2018 period, a new training program is to be implemented, including the heads of people’s tribunals (branches of basic level courts dealing with minor disputes). Training materials are to be compiled by the Court.  The second aspect of the training program is to pilot a  judicial training program (apparently drawing from the practice in Taiwan and Japan) for new judges in designated areas for judicial reforms (as highlighted in point 50 of the judicial reform plan).
  • Professionally outstanding judges: the Court is to continue its program of cooperating with certain universities and research institutes to provide master’s and doctoral training (the Chinese University of Political Science and Law seems to be one of the Court’s partners); the National Judges College is to run training programs for outstanding young/middle aged judges for a minimum of one month.  Additionally, a corps of outstanding judicial trainers at the provincial level is to be created.  The September, 2015 measures to improve foreign-related competence in the judiciary are likely linked to this, as are some of the programmatic outcomes from the US-China initiative on judicial reforms.
  • Judges bilingual in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uygur, Kazakh, Korean, Yi and Zhuang.  This target was mentioned  in the Fourth Plenum and Fourth Five Year Judicial Reform Plan, and is linked to an arrangement by the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, Organizational Department of the Communist Party Central Committee, and the Supreme People’s Court to train 1500 bilingual judges by 2020.  This will also involve more and higher quality translation of legal materials into local languages. Press reports from Uighur and Tibetan areas, for example, describe civil litigants who do not understand Mandarin and find the justice system inaccessible for resolving business disputes, as well as criminal defendants who are unable to understand criminal proceedings, such as a Tibetan who did not understand what a “suspended death sentence” was.  In Xinjiang, for example, only 40% of judges described themselves as bilingual.

How training will be implemented

Judicial training is to focus on active and practical methods, including the case method (no less than 30%), moot courts, and other interactive methods.  The intellectual influence of exchange and training programs with offshore counterparts is apparent from the more interactive methods required.  Previous training programs (often funded by foreign NGOs) have enabled judges from the Supreme People’s Court and other Chinese courts to receive training in China with noted international experts while others have received training outside of (mainland) China.  Will this continue under the new normal?

Court Operations

The language of architecture of the courts, mainland China and Hong Kong

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Supreme People’s Court building, Beijing
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#1 Circuit Court building, Shenzhen
jinan court
Jinan Intermediate Court building

I had the opportunity to visit the Supreme People’s Court #1 Circuit Court in Shenzhen recently (thank you to all involved for arranging the visit, about which I will discuss further in another post).  The visit, recent events in China and a recent article in Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (by my friend and former student, Simon Ng, of the University of Hong Kong)  on the newly renovated Court of Final Appeal building in Hong Kong (over one hundred years old, and one of the first purpose-built British court buildings in Asia) got me to thinking about the language of architecture, in particular the steel gates around Chinese courts. The #1 Circuit Court, as all Chinese courts I have visited or seen, has steel gates surrounding it and police protection.

Among the reasons for the steel gates is incidents such as the one detailed in this article in the English language version of Caixin.  A factory worker in the city of Shiyan, Hubei Province attacked four judges, angry about the outcome of his case against his employer.  This case is not exceptional–in a 2010 case, reported here, three judges were killed and several others injured in Hunan province, by a man disgruntled by the property settlement in his divorce case. Professor Bi Yuqian of  the Chinese University of Political Science and Law commented on the Shiyan case: “The public authority of judges has not yet been founded in China… It is not shocking that a judge is stabbed in China.”

For that reason, the Fourth Plenum Decision sets as a goal: raise judicial credibility…strive to have the people feel fairness and justice in every judicial case.”

The architecture of modern Chinese courts borrows some elements from the traditional architecture of a yamen, while the language of the architecture of the courts of Hong Kong  is very different.yamen

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Court of Final Appeal building

Simon Ng recently published the following comments about the Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal Building, “It is an icon of Hong Kong’s judicial independence, which has been practised for over a century and is preserved under the solemn pledge of “one country, two systems”.

The blindfolded Themis standing right above the royal coat of arms is a visual reiteration of the centuries-old ideal of rule of law that even the sovereign must be subject to the law and reason. The administration of justice under the dome has to live up to that spirit.

Over the years, the architecture has helped to shape public understanding and expectations of the legal system. Fairness and impartiality, as symbolised by Themis, are the legal values that people treasure most.

With the reoccupation by the Court of Final Appeal, the building will continue to convey the meaning of rule of law across time through its language of architecture, the practice of judicial independence, and the upholding of justice and equality.”

The language of architecture conveys the status of the judiciary at this time and public expectations of the  legal system.  We can only hope that some day, the steel gates surrounding Chinese courts will be unneeded.

(©Court of Final Appeal building, SCMP; Jinan, Getty images; SPC, BBC)

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Operations

Official interference or leadership?

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Interference in cases forbidden!(©Xu Jun, Xinhua)

In late August, the Supreme People’s Court (Court) issued a pair of regulations, aimed at reducing the phenomenon of officials, within and outside a court, involving themselves in cases.

Translations of the regulations are available, thanks to Chinalawtranslate.com: (the Chinese originals are available on the Court’s website here and there):

  • Implementing Measures for People’s Courts Carrying Out the ‘Provisions on Recording, Reporting and Pursuing Responsibility of Leading Cadres Interfering with Judicial Activities or Tampering with the Handling of Specific Cases (Leading Cadres Measures); and
  • Implementing Measures On Pursuing Responsibility In Cases Of Internal Judicial Personnel Prying Into Cases (Judicial Prying Measures).

This blogpost takes a quick look at the first one.

What do the Leading Cadre Measures say?

The Leading Cadre Measures (which implement State Council/Central Committee (General Office) regulations issued in March are directed at officials outside the judiciary who seek to influence court decisions, and require judges (who are other subject to penalties for not doing so) to  record all communications relating specific cases made by entities and individuals other than those in courts, and retain the relevant materials. These Measures implement language in the 4th Plenum Decision (Establish a system for recording, reporting, and investigating the responsibility of instances wherein leading cadres interfere in judicial activities or get involved in the handling of certain cases.)  The reports are to be submitted to the local political legal committee (or next higher political legal committee, depending on the status of the offending individual) and the next highest court, generally on a quarterly basis. If the conduct is serious, and might cause unjust, false and wrongfully decided cases or other “serious consequences,” the court is directed to report immediately.

Article 7 of the Leading Cadre Measures lists some of the most frequently used techniques, many of which have a economic, rather than political motivation:

making requests for help on behalf of litigants during the trial and enforcement stages;

Requesting that people’s courts adopt, suspend or release the seizure, sealing or freezing measures against objects being secured or enforced against.

Requesting that people’s courts select certain evaluation organizations, asset evaluation agencies, auction organizations or bankruptcy management agents;

Requesting that people’s courts preferentially give case assets to certain applicants for enforcement…..

The Leading Cadre Measures place the views of certain organizations in a different category:

“Party and government organs, professional associations, social public interest organizations and public institutions with administrative functions in accordance with law retained or permitted by people’s courts to follow the working procedures to submit consultative opinions in cases of national interest or societal public interest, may be not entered into information archive on prying, but relevant materials shall stored in the case file for future reference.”

Professor He Haibo of Tsinghua University explains what this means:

the courts must accept these materials, and it gives those organizations a chance to participate and speak; placing the materials in the case file gives the other party as well as possibly the public an opportunity to understand and evaluate them. This is consistent with the requirements of due process…

Will documents issued by Political Legal Committees at various levels really be placed in case files and made accessible to lawyers?

How do officials and judges interact?

The patterns of behavior that these regulations are aimed at changing are long-standing. From Doing Business in China, a leading book for practitioners (chapter by Harry Liu, Meg Utterback, Yu Simin):

Informally, judges are occasionally given instructions by political leaders on individual cases. Intervention by Party leaders in individual cases remains acceptable…The forms of interference vary: sometimes oral instructions are given, or sometimes the instructions are incorporated into official documents, with a requirement that the judge report back on the outcome. As to the content, the instructions may (1) tell courts to emphasize a case or handle a particular case “according to law,” (2) express an opinion on certain aspects of the case, or (3), recommend certain action to the court in lieu of dictating the outcome.

Professor He Haibo of Tsinghua University School of Law, writing in the People’s Court Daily–the line between “coordination in accordance with law” and interference with judicial activities is very hard to draw (什么是“统筹协调依法处理”、什么是“干预司法活动”，界限似乎难以划得清清楚楚)。

Comments from an unscientific sampling of judges

  • How the regulations work out in practice will depend to a large extend on how the officials undue intervention recorded will affect their future career or have legal liability.  If yes, the leaders will refrain from intervening. It will also depend on whether the judges would suffer from recording the intervention, particularly if he institutions are not administratively or financially independent from the agencies the officials represent or are able to influence.  In the latter case, judges wold be reluctant to record the intervention. It is likely that court leaders will interfere less frequently and with less success.
  • It will be of some help, when the interference is from strangers. But if from old friends, direct leaders, those won’t be reported, because it would betray the relationship.

More autonomy under Party leadership

The Leading Cadre Measures are not a magic bullet that will change the way the Chinese courts operate. The intent is to reduce the involvement of local officials in court cases to achieve fairer outcomes, while maintaining central policy leadership (and recognizing current reality by having a framework for Party officials to provide their views “for consideration”).

How well will the Measures work during the transitional period that the local judiciary remains under the control of local authorities? And how should the line be drawn between interference, leadership, and coordination?

A model case?

In late August, the Jinhua Intermediate Court (Zhejiang province) used the March regulations to call the attention of the press (and higher authorities) to a local official who threatened a judge with physical harm, when local courts ruled against the official’s wife in a shareholding dispute, although the case led one Zhejiang University law professor to comment that it wasn’t typical of official interference. According to the latest reports, the Jinhua Intermediate Court has withdrawn the notice, and both the judge and official in question are being investigated by the relevant CCDI organization.  A local Jinhua lawyer was quoted as saying that the local court staff had erred in making the matter public at this point.

The Jinhua case, while perhaps not a typical interference case, is typical of the widespread lack of civility confronting Chinese judges (and doctors), that in too many cases means a threat to their physical safety, and could indicate how difficult it will be to actually implement the Leading Cadre Measures.

Judicial interpretation

Supreme People’s Court and its normative documents

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Court reply
Court reply

This blogpost discusses some of the documents that the Supreme People’s Court (Court) issues and what they mean, particularly to foreign legal professionals who may encounter them in practice. They reflect the bureaucratic way the Court operate (about which I (and others) have written). It is not a complete list, but a description of some of the ones I’ve written about on this blog.

The 4th Five Year Plan anticipates some reform in this area: “improve the Supreme People’s Court’s methods of trial guidance, increase the standardization, timeliness, focus and efficacy of judicial interpretations and other measures of trial guidance.”

Terminology–Some of these are described on the Court website as judicial documents (司法文件) or judicial normative documents (司法规范性文件).  They are not cited in judgments or rulings (unlike judicial interpretations), but judgments or rulings should be consistent with them. There do not seem to be clear rules on which of these documents should be made public.  Some of those documents include:

  1. Opinions (意见), issued by the Court and other institutions not authorized to issue judicial interpretations.

 Example:  Opinion on Handling Criminal Cases of Domestic Violence in Accordance with Law (Supreme People’s Court，(Law Release (2015) No. 4), The Supreme People’s Procuratorate, The Ministry of Public Security, and Ministry of Justice), discussed here， with normative provisions (instructions to the lower courts–“please implement conscientiously”).

2.  Opinions (意见), issued by the Court, but setting out judicial policy.

Opinions of the Supreme People’s Court on Fully Strengthening Environmental Resources Trial Work to Provide Powerful Judicial Safeguards for Promoting Eco-civilization Construction (最高人民法院关于全面加强环境资源审判工作 为推进生态文明建设提供有力司法保障的意见) and Opinions on Providing Judicial Services and Safeguards for the Building of One Belt One Road by People’s Courts” (关于人民法院为“一带一路”建设提供司法服务和保障的若干意见) (Instructions to the lower courts– “the following guiding opinion is set out”).

These may require further implementing regulations but judgments should be consistent with these opinions.

3. Conference summaries often address new issues or areas of law in which the law is not settled.  Conference summaries are not required to be made public, although with the internet and social media, they are now more widely available than in the early 1990’s, when I first wrote about them.

Example–the 2015  one on drugs (全国法院毒品犯罪审判工作座谈会纪要). (instructions to the lower courts-please implement this as reference, combined with the actual situation of trial work, if in implementation problems are encountered, please report in a timely manner to this Court) 请结合审判工作实际参照执行。执行中遇到问题，请及时报告我院)

4. Replies (请示复函).  Arbitration lawyers see these in published replies to the lower courts, such as those done under the Court’s reporting system relating to judgments/rulings concerning foreign-related and foreign arbitral awards.The response is binding on the lower court regarding the particular case.  The Court publishes these replies (and the report from the lower courts) in its periodical China Trial Guide: Guide on Foreign-Related Commercial and Maritime Trial, from which the following example is taken:

Example: This 2012 response to a report from the Hubei Higher People’s Court: SPC reply to Hubei High Court.

In the area of arbitration practice, the principles set out in these responses are persuasive, but not binding in later cases, and arbitration lawyers discuss these responses as a particular form of case law, such as this law firm client alert.

Replies (批复).  These are seen in requests for lower courts for approval of certain matters, such as having basic level courts hear foreign-related cases, based on relevant law and judicial interpretations.

Example, a 2013 reply by the Court to a request from the Anhui Higher People’s Court.  These are binding on the lower courts.

5. Decision （决定).  These are seen when the Court issues documents setting out an administrative approval.

Example: a 2015 decision designating certain courts as model courts for diversified approaches to dispute resolution, mentioned here.

Commercial law

Supreme People’s Court regulates private (shadow) lending

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cf3ceb83123a55e7e1534d64c542a87c
private lending

On August 6, the Supreme People’s Court issued its long-awaiting judicial interpretation on private (shadow) lending.  Its provisions are applicable to P2P funding platforms and other lenders not under the jurisdiction of the financial regulators. My article in The Diplomat summarizes the judicial interpretation and its significance.

Commercial law, Communist Party and the Courts

Updated musings on Supreme People’s Court Vice President Xi Xiaoming

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Vice President Xi XiaomingThis updated blogpost muses on Judge Xi Xiaoming, and:

  • phenomena of “assumption of guilt” and trial in the press
  • political factors in Chinese judicial decision-making;
  •  judicial corruption;
  •  implications for related parties;
  •  investigation-centered criminal justice system
  •  effect on lower court judges;
  • the intellectual legacy of Judge Xi;
  •  effect on the credibility of the judicial system.

The comments below are made with no further information about Judge Xi’s case than what is publicly available.

The background

In the late afternoon of 12 July, Xinhua news issued a statement reporting that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that Supreme People’s Court (Court) Vice President Xi Xiaoming, was under investigation for violation of Party discipline and law.  Judge Xi has worked in the Court for over thirty years and is well known for his expertise in civil and commercial law. The announcement caused shockwaves in the Chinese legal community. Chinese press reports have linked the allegations to a case involving a 420 million RMB dispute over shareholding in a Shanxi coal mine, but the allegations have not been confirmed by the CCDI.

On 20 August, Meng Jianzhu, head of the Central Political Legal Committee, made the following statement about Judge Xi: “Xi Xiaoming has shamed the judiciary, as a experienced judge who has worked in the Supreme People’s Court for 33 years, who has colluded with certain  illegal lawyers, judicial brokers, and lawless business people by accepting huge bribes. “作为在最高法院工作33年的老法官，奚晓明却同个别违法律师、司法掮客、不法商人相互勾结，收受巨额贿赂，这是司法界的耻辱。”

 “Presumption of guilt” and trial in the press

Judge Xi is under investigation by the CCDI and it has not yet been reported that the procuracy has yet filed a case against him.  It does not seem that the lawyers involved in the Shanxi case have been prosecuted or penalized for illegal activity.  Meng Jianzhu’s statement evidences two phenomenon in Chinese criminal justice–the presumption of guilt and “trying” suspects in the press

As Zhu Zhengfu, the vice-chairman of the All China Lawyers Association warned earlier this year, there is a widespread and dangerous “presumption of guilt” among mainland law enforcers.”  Zhu proposed a law be enacted to fully protect each citizen’s right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

“An arrest is made on one day, then the next day you have the suspect confessing on television, and some are forced to confess,” Zhu said.

“After the confession, [law enforcers] immediately say the case has been solved and they celebrate their achievement. So you can imagine how much pressure the court is under if it wants to pass an innocent verdict.”

As Si Wejiang of the Debund Law Firm pointed out, CCTV often declares a person guilty even before the procuracy has approved his arrest and does not give his defense lawyer a chance to speak.

Complex politics of large commercial disputes in China

In private comments, several senior Chinese lawyers and other Chinese legal experts have suggested that Judge Xi’s case is not a simple case of corruption, but is tied to more complex political factors.
As two DLA Piper lawyers commented in a Practical Law publication, “large commercial disputes between Chinese parties are usually settled with the help of political influence and/or commercial pressure, with the rule of law methods such as litigation and arbitration either not used at all or used as a bargaining tool.”

They further noted that in recent years “there has been a return to non-rule of law methods of settlement, particularly in relation to disputes involving over CNY100 million.”

The senior lawyers noted that judges hearing cases involving politically powerful litigants (called interest groups in Chinese political jargon) may be under pressure to decide the cases in particular way (as further described in the next section). As time goes on, the litigants may not be as politically powerful as before, and the judgment (and the judges who made decisions) may be called into question.

Corruption in the courts

The corruption allegations are said to be connected to the Shanxi case, reported in further detail in the Caxin report.  But the corruption allegations may be more complicated than they appear.  As several  academic studies have noted, judicial corruption in China has several root causes related to the nature of the judicial system.  In her 2014 book,  The Judicial System and Reform in Post-Mao China, Li Yuwen, Professor of Chinese Law at Erasmus University stated:

First, the lack of judicial independence leaves room for corruption.In practice, when a case is brought to court or assigned to a judge, court officials or the responsible judge are often contacted by various people–the most influential ones are those with government positions….In addition, the lack of recognition of the nature of the judiciary to enforce law fairly and efficiently also results in a puzzling perception of courts and judges….

Secondly, judicial corruption cannot be divorced from its social context…It is unrealistic to expect judges to operate completely outside the social environment, especially in the absence of a workable system to reduce the incidence of judicial corruption….

Thirdly, certain shortcomings of the court system leave the door open for corruption. For instance, the flexible use of the re-trial system leads to the easy re-opening of cases if influential people wish to interfere in the case. This not only diminishes the finality of the case but also creates opportunities for using personal networking to change a court’s judgment. Furthermore, the relatively law judicial salary makes judges an easy target for corruption…In modern-day China, a profession’s income is too often linked to the profession’s social status. Judges’ low salaries are not conducive to building self-respect amongst the profession and, moreover, they constitute a major ground for fostering judicial corruption.

So returning to the social context of 2011. A number of Chinese lawyers and academics have privately noted that at the time of the case in question, it would not be unusual for supplemental payments to be made to Court judges in connection with commercial disputes involving large amounts of money, and refusing payment could also have been awkward for those involved.  Whether this was in fact the case for Judge Xi is not known.

Implications for related parties

It is likely that the anti-corruption investigation into Judge Xi will touch on parties, including other judges, related to the case(s) in question.  It is also likely that the full extent of the investigation will not be made public.

Investigation-centered criminal justice system

Judge Xi is now experiencing the Chinese investigation-centered criminal justice system, in which Party members are generally subject to shuanggui, where they are subject to long periods of interrogation outside the formal criminal justice system, followed by repeated interrogations if and when the case is transferred to the procuracy. His case is part of the current anti-corruption campaign.

As Professor Fu Hualing of the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong has written:

The anti-corruption campaign is also a highly politicized process. Investigations are selective, politically motivated, and aim to achieve particular political consequences….

Xi’s campaign further shifts power from legal institutions to the Party’s disciplinary mechanism. Compared with anti-corruption work under the previous government, the current campaign more decisively bypasses legal procedures and institutions. After a brief moment in which law seemed to be able to play a central role in the anti-corruption process, legal institutions have been effectively marginalized to the role of initiating anticorruption
purges of ‘tigers’. There is no longer any meaningful discussion
on the end goals and limits of shuanggui, the Party’s power to detain its own delinquent members and little mention of the creation of a more neutral anti-corruption body.

Effect on other judges?

What will be the effect of Judge Xi’s case on judges in the lower courts, who may not want to find themselves involved in local parallels of his case? Will it lead to further departures of experienced judges?

The intellectual legacy of Judge Xi

Judge Xi has been a major force in the area of civil and commercial law, involved in many major legal developments in China over the past thirty years. He has been involved the drafting of major judicial interpretations, edited many books, and been involved in other major legal initiatives, including, most recently, the drafting of the Civil Code and the establishment of an environmental law research center affiliated with the Court.  The many technical legal reforms in which he has been involved are crucial to the operation of the Chinese judicial system. The initiatives in which he has been involved are likely to go on with other talented people, but he is sure to be missed.

Effect on the credibility of the judicial system

Improving the credibility of the Chinese judicial system is said one of the goals of the Chinese judicial reforms.  We will need to wait and see how Judge Xi’s case progresses, and how both official and unofficial commentators, as well as members of the Chinese public and international community view his case.

Uncategorized

Environmental public interest litigation in the Qingdao maritime courts

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large_article_im2286_ConocoPhillips_oil_spill_in_ChinaChinese maritime courts, which primarily hear maritime commercial cases, also have jurisdiction over maritime pollution cases.  This short blogpost provides a brief update on the first public interest environmental case filed in the maritime courts.

Qingdao Maritime Court has announced that it accepted a case filing by plaintiff China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) against ConocoPhillips and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC).

According to its official social media Weibo, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit on July 7th, 2015, requesting the court to order two defendants to repair the environmental damage caused during the 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill. The court accepted the case on July 21st, 2015.

This is the first maritime pollution case in China brought by a social organization in accordance with the Article 58 of the Environmental Protection Law, which for the first time granted social organizations to file litigation relating to pollution activities that cause environmental pollution, ecological damage or public interest harm.

CBCGDF had previously filed cases regarding fresh water pollution and red wood destruction, which were accepted by the respective courts. Back in May 2015, another social organization brought a similar lawsuit against PetroChina in Dalian Maritime Court for oil spill, which was dismissed by the court. The plaintiff in that case did not seek to appeal the dismissal after PetroChina set aside an ecological repair fund of RMB 200 million.

The 2011 Bohai Bay oil spill has been followed by government investigation and fines, as well as related civil lawsuits. This case will be widely watched by the environmental community, including social organizations [foundations, NGOs, and others] and environmental law experts and Chinese and international practitioners.

[Contributed by Fang Jianwei (Jerry) Fang, a partner with the China-based Global Law Office in the firm’s Shanghai and Beijing offices. He was a judge in China and studied law at Columbia Law School.  For more information on this report, please contact him  at jfang@glo.com.cn.]

Court Operations, foreign investment law, foreign-related cases

Supreme People’s Court and “One Belt One Road”

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Judge Luo Dongchuan. chief judge,#4 civil division
Judge Luo Dongchuan. chief judge,#4 civil division, at the OBOR Opinion press conference

On 7 July the Supreme People’s Court (the Court) issued an opinion (意见) policy document on how the courts should provide services and protection to “One Belt One Road” (OBOR Opinion) (关于人民法院为“一带一路”建设提供司法服务和保障的若干意见). This blogpost explains why the Supreme People’s Court issued it, what the policy document provides and what it means for legal professionals. The typical (model) cases issued at the same time include the Sino-Environment case, subject of an earlier blogpost  (and deserve closer analysis).

Why was the One Belt One Road document issued?

One Belt One Road (OBOR) is a major government strategic initiative.  As a central government institution, the Court must do its part to support OBOR.  Major SOEs contemplating investing in OBOR projects or trading with companies on OBOR recognize that their interests are best protected through legal infrastructure and the Court has an important role in this. MOFCOM and other related regulatory agencies realize this as well. Local courts linked to the Belt or the Road, are dealing with new demands because of OBOR and are looking to the Court for guidance.

The OBOR Opinion was drafted with input from these regulatory agencies and certain legal experts, but was not issued for public comment.

What the OBOR Opinion covers

The OBOR Opinion covers cross-border criminal, civil and commercial, and maritime as well as free trade zone-related judicial issues.  It also deals with the judicial review of arbitration.

Criminal law issues: the lower courts are requested to improve their work in cross-border criminal cases, and the courts are to do their part in increased mutual judicial assistance in criminal matters.  The focus is on criminal punishment of  those characterized as violent terrorists, ethnic separatists, religious extremists, and secondarily on pirates, drug traffickers, smugglers money launderers, telecommunication fraudsters, internet criminals, and human traffickers. It also calls on courts to deal with criminal cases arising in trade, investment, and other cross-border business, and deal with criminal policy and distinguishing whether an act is in fact a crime, so that each case will meet the test of law and history.  The political concerns behind criminal law enforcement issues are evident in this.

Much of the focus in the OBOR Opinion is on civil and commercial issues, including the exercise of jurisdiction, mutual legal assistance, and parallel proceedings in different jurisdictions and in particular, improving the quality of the Chinese courts in dealing with cross-border legal issues. These issues are explained in more detail below

One of the underlying goals set out in the OBOR Opinion, is to improve the international standing and influence of the Chinese courts and other legal institutions.

What does it mean for legal professionals

The OBOR Opinion signals that the Court is working on a broad range of practically important cross-border legal issues.  Some of these issues involve working out arrangements with other Chinese government agencies and are likely to require several years to implement.  The OBOR Opinion mentions that the Court:

  • seeks to expand bilateral and multilateral mutual judicial assistance arrangements, for better delivery of judicial documents, obtaining evidence, recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments.
  • supports and promotes the use of international commercial and maritime arbitration to resolve disputes arising along One Belt One Road.  China will promote the use of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention) between countries on One Belt One Road and encourage countries that have not yet acceded to the Convention to do so.
  • supports and promotes the use of various types of mediation to resolve OBOR related cross-border disputes.
  • it signals that the Court will become more involved in Chinese government initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the conference of supreme courts under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and other international or regional multilateral judicial cooperation organizations.
  • is signalling the lower courts that they should limit the range of cross-border contracts being declared invalid or void.
  •  sets out the new thinking on the issue of reciprocity in the enforcement of foreign judgments, in particular that Chinese courts can take the initiative in extending the reciprocity principle to parties from other jurisdictions.  This is practically significant for foreign parties and their counsel, and has been discussed repeatedly by both practitioners and academics (such as these);
  • will improve Chinese legal infrastructure on overseas evidence, overseas witnesses giving evidence, documenting the identity of overseas parties, “to better convenience Chinese and foreign parties. ”  This would involve evolving from the current system embedded in Chinese legislation of requiring notarization and legalization of many documents (because mainland China is not yet a party to the Hague Convention on the Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization of Foreign Public Documents. This is a positive sign;
  • The Court has on its agenda further legal infrastructure on the judicial review of arbitration (as signalled at the end of last year), involving foreign/Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan parties, aimed at supporting arbitration and having a unified standard of judicial review on the following issues:
    • refusing enforcement of arbitral awards; and
    • setting aside arbitral awards.
  • has on its agenda judicial legal infrastructure for supporting the resolution of bilateral trade, investment, free trade zone and related disputes.
  • Reflecting language in the 4th Plenum, it calls for China to be more greatly involved tin the drafting of relevant international rules, to strengthen China’s voice concerning issues of international trade, investment, and financial law.
  •  mentions that an improved version of the Court’s English language website and website on foreign-related commercial and maritime issues is forthcoming.  Specific suggestions can be emailed to supremepeoplescourtmonitor@gmail.com.
Court Operations

The Supreme People’s Court and interpreting the law, revisited

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Marriage law judicial opinion
Marriage law judicial opinion

The topic of the Supreme People’s Court and the interpretation of law is one that vexes many, legal practitioners and academics alike.  Although the Chinese constitution vests the power to interpret law with the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC SC), the Supreme People’s Court (the Court) and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) actively issue interpretations of law. The Court more so than the SPP, because it deals with a broader range of legal issues.  These interpretations of law are critical to the operation of the Chinese legal system because national law tends to set out broad principles that require additional legal infrastructure to be workable and the courts, in particular, need that legal infrastructure to decide cases.

A 1981 decision by the NPC SC delegated to the Court the authority to interpret law relating to questions involving the specific application of laws and decrees in court trials, while the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) was delegated authority to interpret law relating to questions involving the specific application of laws and decrees in procuratorial work.  The Organic Law of the People’s Courts re-iterates the delegation of authority to interpret law to the Court. Oddly enough, the principle is not in the Organic Law of the People’s Procuratorates. Interpretations by both the SPP and the Court are known as “judicial interpretations.”

In 2015, the Legislation Law, which had previously not addressed interpretation of law by the Court and the SPP, addressed the issue in Article 104.  This article is taken as intended to codify existing practice, because the explanation of the law recognizes the practical necessity of judicial interpretations:

  • “Interpretations on the specific application of law in adjudication or procuratorate work issued by the Supreme People’s Court or Supreme People’s Procuratorate shall primarily target specific articles of laws, and be consistent with the goals, principles and significance of legislation.”
  • It requires the Court (or SPP) in the situation described in the second paragraph of Article 45 of the Legislation Law (where the NPC SC  gives interpretations of national law), to submit a request for a legal interpretation, or a proposal to draft or amend relevant law, to the NPC SC.
  • As 2007 regulations of the Court on judicial interpretations had required, interpretations of law are required to be reported to the NPC SC within 30 days of issuance.
  • Courts and procuratorates other than the Court and the SPP must not make specific interpretations of law. (This sets out in national law what had previously been contained in Court (and SPP regulations.)  The lower courts continue to issue guidelines applicable within their jurisdiction, as discussed  here.

(The explanation of the law  (legislative history) provides further background).

The process for drafting Court interpretations described in the 2007 regulations requires that the views of the relevant special committee or department of the NPC SC be solicited during the drafting process, and there would be pushback from the NPC SC if it was considered that the judicial interpretation had gone ‘too far.’

What types of judicial interpretations are there?

The 2007 Court regulations on judicial interpretations (linked here)  limit judicial interpretations to the following four types:

Those 2007  regulations set out various procedures for drafting and promulgating judicial interpretations, including a requirement that they be approved by the Court’s judicial committee and be made public.  As discussed in earlier blogposts, broad public consultation may be done if it affects the “vital interests of the people or major and difficult issues. These regulations also provide that judges may cite judicial interpretations as the basis for a court decision or ruling. Article 23 of the 4th Five Year Court Reform Plan mentions reform of judicial interpretations:

Improve the Supreme People’s Court’s methods of trial guidance, increase the standardization, timeliness, focus and efficacy of judicial interpretations and other measures of trial guidance. Reform and improve mechanisms for the selection, appraisal and release of guiding cases. Complete and improve working mechanisms for the uniform application of law.

As discussed in earlier blogposts, the Court also issues other documents with normative provisions that do not fit the above definition.  Those will be discussed separately.

arbitration, Commercial law, foreign-related cases

Shine light on draft judicial interpretation on “twisting the law in arbitration”!

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images-1The Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate are together drafting a judicial interpretation on Article 399a of the Criminal Law, the crime of “twisting the law in arbitration.”  My understanding is that one of the criminal law divisions of the Supreme People’s Court is involved in the drafting, rather than the #4 civil division, well-known internationally for its expertise in arbitration issues. According to an article published by the Guiyang Arbitration Commission, in late April, the State Council Legislative Affairs Office distributed the draft to some arbitration commissions for comment.  Given the many legal issues it raises for domestic and foreign arbitrators (and the Chinese government’s international/regional obligations), it should be issued publicly for comment.

What is Article 399a of the Criminal Law?

Article 399a, is part of  Chapter IX:  Crimes of Dereliction of Duty.

Where a person, who is charged by law with the duty of arbitration, intentionally runs counter to facts and laws and twists the law when making a ruling in arbitration, if the circumstances are serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention; and if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years.”(依法承担仲裁职责的人员，在仲裁活动中故意违背事实和法律作枉法裁决，情节严重的，处三年以下有期徒刑或者拘役;情节特别严重的，处三年以上七年以下有期徒刑.)

Article 399a,  (which seems to have been drawn from analogous provisions in Japanese and Taiwan law), was promulgated despite protests from the arbitration community. Harsh criticism continues to be published (in Chinese), such as Professor Song Lianbin’s Critical Analysis of the Crime of Deliberately Rendering an Arbitral Award in Violation of Law. Recently, Duan Xiaosong, a Chinese law lecturer, published an article in a US law review on Article 399a, but the article apparently did not catch the attention of international practitioners.

Issues include:

  • Article 399a is a duty crime (one committed by officials). How is it that Chinese arbitrators who are not officials, or foreign arbitrators can commit this crime?
  • The procuratorate investigates duty crimes.  This means that the procuratorate must review an award to make a decision whether to investigate whether an award has been intentionally rendered “in violation of facts and law.” Will a procuratorate be able to conduct this review applying foreign law?
  • If a procuratorate prosecutes a case under Article 399a, it also requires a court to undertake a substantive review of an arbitral award.
  • Judicial interpretations of both the Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate raise important issues.  As suggested in several earlier blogposts, part of the judicial reforms should include greater requirements for public comment on draft judicial interpretations. Depending on how familiar the US and EU bilateral investment treaty negotiators are with the details of Chinese law, this may be raised by negotiators.

Comment

Because this judicial interpretation has implications for China’s obligations under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (the New York Convention) and the analogous arrangement with Hong Kong, the draft should be made public so that the greater arbitration community, domestic and foreign, is able to provide detailed analysis and commentary on it. This is the interests of the international and Chinese legal communities.

Court Operations, court reforms

New docketing procedures come to the Chinese courts

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local court case filing office
local court case filing office

New docketing procedures (case filing) (立案) have come to the Chinese courts.  Chinese courts have a separate case filing divisions, which up until 1 May of this year acted as gatekeepers to courts.  They exercised their approval authority over cases in a non-transparent manner, which meant for litigants in Chinese courts that their cases could be and were rejected without having the opportunity to argue why they should be accepted.  Case filing divisions also were known to put troublesome filings aside, without issuing a rejection, or repeatedly asked for supplementary documents, seeking to drive away litigants by repeated formalistic demands.

More background is given in these blog posts and law review article.  It has been an ongoing problem for many years, provoking endless complaints and articles by ordinary people, lawyers, academics, and NGOs, and has been one of the issues driving petitioners to the streets.

The Supreme People’s Court (Court) leadership identified case filing as one of the needed reforms (and as one of the many contributing factors to the low prestige of the Chinese judiciary), even before the Third Plenum. Because of that, the Communist Party’s 4th Plenum Decision and the 4th Five Year Court Reform Plan flagged this as a priority.  (Unsurprisingly), the language in the two documents is almost identical:

  • Reform systems for courts’ acceptance of cases, change the case filing review system to a case filing registration system, and in cases that should be accepted by the people’s courts, ensure parties procedural rights by requiring filing when there is a case, and requiring acceptance where there is a lawsuit.
  • Change the case filing review system into a case filing registration system, making it so that for cases that should be accepted by the people’s courts, where there is a case it must be filed, and where there is a suit it must be accepted; safeguarding the parties’ procedural rights.
Litigants in line at the #1 Circuit Tribunal

In late April, the Court issued case filing regulations which address many of the longstanding problems that litigants and their lawyers faced:

Case filing divisions

  • refusing to accept complaints;
  • refusing to issue notices rejecting complaints;
  • repeatedly asking for supplementary materials.

The new rules require case filing divisions to accept filings of civil and criminal private prosecution cases (brought by the victim of a crime if the state refuses to prosecute, generally relating to minor crimes) on the spot if possible, provide templates for frequently used types of cases, and to respond within statutory deadlines.  Case filing divisions are directed to make requests for supplementary materials once. (The new administrative litigation law judicial interpretation, described in this earlier blogpost, contains similar provisions.) Litigants who encounter noncompliant behavior can file a complaint with the relevant court or the court above it.

Cases that the courts must refuse:

  1. Illegal complaints or complaints that do not comply with law or regulations;
  2. Matters that endanger the sovereignty or territorial integrity of the state;
  3. Matters that endanger national security;
  4. Matters that undermine national unity or ethnic solidarity;
  5. Matters that undermine state religious policy.

Rights activists have likely noticed that these carveouts are broad and flexible enough to keep out some cases that they might want to bring.

The take-up on the reform: some “Big Data”

According to Court statistics, in the first month since the regulations went into effect, there was a 30% jump in the number of cases accepted,(1.13 million), with most of them accepted immediately. The Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Shandong courts accepted over 80,000 cases, with Beijing, Hebei, and other areas accepting over 40,000.

In particular:

  • the number of civil cases was up about 28%.
  • the number of administrative cases accepted was up 221% in comparison to last year (starting from a low base), with Tianjin cases up 752.40％，Shanxi, 480.85％，and Shanghai 475.86％, reflecting both the new case registration and new Administrative Litigation Law going into force.
  • Courts in Zhejiang found that fewer litigants were mediating their cases before filing suit (down 17%), and the success rate of mediation was down by 14%.  Does this mean a better outcome for litigants?  Closer analysis is needed.

Much of the press coverage has been about litigants filing cases themselves, rather than with the assistance of a lawyer or other legal personnel, but I haven’t seen statistics that address this.

Some more detailed data from Jiangsu province:

download 1
Case filings in Jiangsu Province, by city
1115572603_14339164175221n
Civil 60791, enforcement 25438, administrative 1980, private prosecution 256, state compensation 56
1115572603_14339164566661n
May, 2015 cases accepted, by location

An evaluation after six weeks

Some thoughts about the case filing reform

  • It will mean more cases in the courts and greater stress for fewer judges and other judicial staff, to assist the many pro se litigants.
  • It should reduce the dissatisfaction level of some proportion of litigants with the court system, such as the anonymous staff from a Guangzhou car finance company quoted in a press report.
  • Violence against court personnel (like medical personnel), is another factor driving qualified and experienced people away, as described in these recent articles.  Will the reforms reduce the level of frustration of ordinary people with the court system, and reduce physical and verbal attacks on judicial personnel?  It is early days to say.
  • It does not resolve underlying issues such as local courts not wanting to offend local government or locally state-owned enterprises.  The 4th 5 Year Court Reform Plan identifies cross-jurisdictional courts as a solution, and pilot projects have started on this in various locations, including Beijing, but a comprehensive framework is not yet in place.
  • For the numerically small number of foreign litigants in the system, it does not change all the documentary requirements needed, such as notarization and legalization of documents and powers of attorney. It should make it easier for foreign invested companies to litigate.
  • As a Court spokesman suggested,  the rejection of many cases could come later, leading to greater pressure on the courts later on, from appeals, more requests for cases to be re-tried, and not ultimately reduce the number of petitioners.
  • It will inevitably lead to abuse of process and frivolous cases, such as the over-publicized case of a Shanghai man suing because of the stare of a TV star caused him spiritual damage. The Court is working on rules to address this.
Commercial law

The tidal wave of Chinese shadow banking disputes

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the "pyramiding" private lending (potentially crushing the banks)
“Pyramiding” private lending (potentially crushing the banks)

My article in The Diplomat on shadow banking disputes was recently published. It highlights what few outside of China have noticed–that shadow banking/private lending disputes account for a substantial proportion of civil/commercial disputes in Chinese courts, creating a particular burden on the courts.  In some places, the percentage hovers close to 50%!  These disputes raise a range of issues and the law is particularly unclear.  Although some provincial (and municipal) courts have issued guidance in the absence of a more detailed judicial interpretation, the lower courts are looking to the Supreme People’s Court for a more comprehensive national legal framework.

criminal law

Supreme People’s Court’s new policy on drugs

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ceb176df44f7c0a32fc56771bb9ba2c9This short blogpost follows up on the recent report on the same topic in the  Diplomat.

In late May, the Supreme People’s Court issued a conference summary on drug crimes (全国法院毒品犯罪审判工作座谈会纪要) setting out further guidance to the lower courts on trying drug cases (for those diving deeper into the subject, a transcript of comments by an official of the #5 criminal division follows the text of the conference summary).

Conference summaries are what the Court entitles “normative documents” and often address new issues or areas of law in which the law is not settled.   “Conference summaries” are also a form of Communist Party/government document.  Conference summaries are not considered “judicial interpretations” and are not required to be made public.  The full text was not generally issued in the legal press but has appeared in social media. This blogpost will look further into the conference summary and what it implies.

The conference summary

A national drug crimes court conference was held in December, 2014, with delegates both from the military and civilian courts.   Although the actual number of drug cases heard in the military courts is unknown, they do occur, as indicated by a press report of a man sentenced in Anhui for selling drugs, who had previously been convicted by a military court in Lanzhou for selling drugs (and other offenses).

The Court organized the conference to ensure that the lower courts were trying drug crimes in line with the latest national policy on the matter and to harmonize lower court practice.  That national policy is set out in the first Central Committee/State Council policy document on drug crimes, issued in July, 2014, and the content appears to be sensitive enough that the full text has not been published. “Harmonizing court practice” means in  Chinese judicial parlance that judges are applying the law similarly. As explained earlier, judicial conferences are an important way of doing so. The conference summary, which was circulated among conference participants (and the Court leadership) sets out guidelines for judges on difficult issues, including the death penalty.

Death penalty

A good analysis of prior law on drugs and the death penalty can be found here. The conference summary provides guidance on how to apply the death penalty, and is consistent with the Court’s general principles on applying the death penalty–in a minority of cases and to the worst offenders.  The conference summary provides guidance in relation to three issues:

  • Trafficking of illegal drugs–the death penalty is most appropriately applied to the head of a drug enterprise, who organizes, ships illegal drugs with armed guards, hires others, etc, and executing 2 or more persons in the same case should be very carefully considered.
  • Illegal drugs supply chain–the death penalty should be applied to the worst offenders.
  • New types of drugs-meth, ice, ketamine–similarly, the death penalty should be applied to the worst offenders.

Who commits drug crimes?

According to a 2011 Court research report, the profile of those committing drug crimes is:

  • Unemployed (51% in 2011), with about 90% peasants and unemployed (this has implications for the government’s urbanization plans;
  • Greater proportion (11%) of women in comparison to other crimes;
  • Many recidivists;
  • Generally low level of education;
  • Involving high level of profits when trafficked away from border areas; and
  • Increasingly involving new types of drugs.

Comment

As Chinese people become wealthier (and the economy becomes more internationalized), drug use (and the illegal drug industry) is growing correspondingly.  As in legal goods, some illegal drug  manufacturing has moved to China.  Although last July’s high level document calls for a three year plan to control illegal drugs, it seems more likely that we will continue to see an increase in drug cases heard in the Chinese courts and capital punishment applied to the most major offenders.

Commercial law

Supreme People’s Court releases big data on civil litigation in 2014

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The Supreme People’s Court (Court) recently issued a report on civil litigation in the Chinese courts in 2014 with some big data and analysis. (The graphics in this blogpost are from the report.)  What are the trends relating to commercial disputes and what do they mean?

# of civil/commercial cases accepted (in 10,000s)

Trend #1–the number of civil and commercial cases has almost doubled in the past 10 years, despite obstacles to filing law suits, well documented elsewhere in blogposts and academic articles (and recognized as a major issue by the Court).

According to the commentary provided by Ma Jian of the Court’s research office, it reflects:

  • Dynamics and fluctuations in society and the economy;
  • Multiple effects of the government’s macro-control policies;
  • Outcomes of implementing legislation regulating the economy and society.
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55.8% contracts; 25.47% ownership etc., 18.63% family/inheritance law

Over 9 million civil/commercial cases were accepted by the Chinese courts in 2014, up 7.41% compared to 2013.  1.2 million cases were carried over to 2015, reflecting a change in performance indicators for the courts, described in this earlier blogpost.

In recent years, civil and  commercial cases have constituted 63% of all litigation in the Chinese courts.  As the Court report noted, the enormous growth in the caseload places even more pressure on the judges.  The large caseload, poor pay, lack of respect, and responsibilities unrelated to hearing cases have motivated a significant number of judges to leave (as this recent article highlights).  The personnel changes announced in the judicial reforms have exacerbated these trends (and were anticipated by the drafters).

Contract disputes

Trend #2.  In 2014, contract disputes constituted more than half of all civil/commercial disputes in the Chinese courts, far outweighing any other category.The proportion of contract disputes in proportion to other civil/commercial disputes has been rising. In 2014, the Chinese courts accepted 4.5 million contract cases, an increase of 11.36% in comparison to 2013. The top five types of contract disputes, accounting for 73% of first instance cases were:

  • loans;
  • sales;
  • labor;
  • service; and
  • real estate development & management cases.

The following types of contract disputes have increased most quickly:

  • credit card;
  • construction;
  • loans;
  • insurance.
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1st instance loan contracts (in 10,000s)

Loan disputes

Trend #3. Loan disputes have more than doubled in the past 10 years.  In 2014, they increased by almost 18% in comparison to 2013, to reach 1.7 million cases, Since 2012, loan disputes have exceeded divorce cases. Reasons for this according to the Court:

  • the government’s prudent money policy;
  • monetary/funding tightening;
  • impact of the new company law reforms [more small companies coming onto the market needing funding];
  • effects of changes to capital market system;
  • large amount of private lending [民间, generally known as shadow lending outside of China], leading to many more disputes. (I will publish an article on these disputes in the near future).

Other contract disputes

In 2014, the courts accepted almost 700,000 sales contract disputes, an increase of 12.28%. According to Court research, many of these cases involved small companies (SMEs). Many of these cases involved small family companies, with inadequate contract templates, leading to disputes.

New real estate construction cases accounted for 118,700 cases, an increase of 18.7%, while 173,000 real estate development cases were accepted by the courts, a increase of 5.53%。  The large increase in real estate construction cases is related to the tightening of funding for real estate development and the hot and cold in the real estate development market.

Other ownership disputes

New first instance ownership disputes accepted in 2014 reached 2 million cases, an increase of 3.67%.  Tort cases accounted for 1.6 million of those cases.  New shareholder disputes accounted for about 26,0000, an increase of almost 37%, with a smaller number of commercial paper disputes (48000), an increase of 15.46%.

The Court commented that SMEs have been most affected by the overall macro-economic downturn, which has indirectly led to all sorts of shareholder disputes.  The new Company Law has made it possible for funds to come in and out easily, but because many of these companies lack secure sources of operating capital and have to depend on private lending (shadow banking), if one party to these transactions has a funding problem, it causes a multi-party chain reaction and creates many complex shareholding disputes.

Mediation

Mediation/withdrawal of case rate for civil/commercial 1st instance cases

As can be seen from the above bar graph, the rate of settlement of first instance civil (and commercial) cases by mediation or other settlement is now back to 2007 levels.  The Court did not set forth reasons for the significant drop in cases resolved by mediation. In my view, two of the factors include:

1) the rate of cases resolved by year end had been an important performance indicator for the courts. Since December, it has no longer been the case; and

2) The Court has moved away from a simplistic policy of “mediation first” to a more nuanced approach to dispute resolution, as indicated by its initiative regarding diversified approaches to dispute resolution.

Comment

Chinese civil litigation reflects what is going on in the real economy and society (this will be even more the case when the effects of case filing reforms are documented) and the effects of government policies and controls on both.  Although the US and the European Union are negotiating bilateral investment treaties (BITs) with China, it appears from news reports that no one in either negotiating team has considered the impact of the current state and ongoing reforms of the Chinese judiciary on those BITs.  These issues deserve more serious attention. Foreign investors (or more often, subsidiaries of foreign investors) in China are increasingly finding themselves in Chinese courts and this trend is likely to continue.

Court Reform, criminal law

Senior Chinese judges speak out on preventing injustices in China’s criminal justice system

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Confess quickly!

Although the Human Rights Watch report on the use of torture in the Chinese criminal justice system is capturing the attention of the media outside of China (and overshadowing a forthcoming report of an investigation done by the China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) on the same subject), the report that may be more persuasive to the Supreme People’s Court (Court) in reducing injustices in China’s criminal justice system is one coming out of a symposium held recently in Henan Province.

The symposium on mistaken cases and “hearing centered criminal procedures”was sponsored by the Henan Higher People’s Court and CUPL,  Participants at the symposium included the president of the Henan Higher People’s Court (Zhang Liyong), the head of the #5 criminal division of the Court (Gao Guijun), several leading academics, including one from the Communist Youth League’s training school, and two from the legal press (Legal Daily and the People’s Court Daily). The detailed report from which this blogpost is taken was published in the Court’s media outlets, and a more abbreviated version on the Central Political Legal Committee’s websites).

The criminal prosecution of senior management of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)’s Chinese subsidiary and many other lower profile cases (such as this one about a Swedish teenager) serve as a reminder that criminal justice issues are relevant to the (foreign) business as well as the human rights community.

The comments from the participants were fairly consistent.  Those from the judges who participated are particularly significant, because their remarks reflect reforms set out in the 4th Five Year Court Reform Plan that may be eventually implemented and they are the ones who can advocate directly these points in internal discussions with other participants in the criminal justice system.

Judge Zhang Liyong, President of the Henan Higher People’s Court
Judge Gao Guijun, head of the #5 Criminal Division of the Court

Comments from the judges

  • Put substance into trial procedure by requiring witnesses to appear in court and implement the exclusion of illegal evidence;
  • Improve judicial supervision of the investigation process, to ensure that the standard of the investigation process meets the standard at trial.  This comment is liked to an unnoticed phrase in the 4th Five Year Court Reform Plan Outline, which calls for “Improving judicial supervision of judicial (i.e. justice system) measures and investigative methods which limit personal freedom.”   Publications within the court system, such as this detailed study in Chongqing advocating better judicial controls over the investigatory stage) reveal that some judges are looking to Germany and Taiwan for examples in other civil law systems, in which detainees have the right to be brought before a court during the investigation process;
  • More effective curbs must be established on procuratorial authority;
  • Torture still exists to some extent, and measures must be taken to prevent it;
  • The procuratorate and defense must be on an equal footing;
  • The defendant is not a criminal until after sentencing, and he must be allowed to sit with defense counsel;
  • The presumption of innocence in doubtful cases must be implemented (疑罪从无原则).

Comments from the academics

  • The new [pre-trial] detention center law being drafted by the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office should incorporate obligations on detention center staff to cooperate with courts in reviewing illegal evidence;
  • A system should be established to require criminal investigators to appear in court and for the investigation agencies (public security and procuracy) to provide full recordings of interrogations;
  • The hearing must become the center of proceedings, not the investigation file, and the trial (first instance hearing) is the foundation for preventing miscarriages of justice;
  • There are defects in the system of correcting miscarriages of justice–there should be a system under which a convict can apply for DNA testing, also the standard for exculpatory evidence in re-trials is too high;

Comments from the media:

  • To prevent mistaken cases, media monitoring is needed;
  • News must be made public, to satisfy the public’s right to know;
  • The justice system must be more transparent.

Comment

Implementing many of the recommendations of the participants of the symposium cannot be done solely by the Court.  They will require approval by the political leadership, acting through the Central Committee’s Central Leading Group for Judicial Reform because they relate to other criminal justice institutions.  Because many of the issues raised, such as Improving judicial supervision of the investigation process, instituting an effective system for excluding illegally obtained evidence are part of the 4th Five Year Court Reform Plan Outline, it is likely that progress will be made towards implementing these measures in the next few years, perhaps once the  reforms mandated for the public security authorities have a had measurable impact. The leadership is unlikely to be willing to implement these reforms if it perceives a negative effect on “law and order” and social stability. The rights of a large number of people can potentially be improved if they are.