Category Archives: big data

alternative dispute resolution, arbitration, big data, BRI, model cases, transparency

Supreme People’s Court to Issue White Paper on Judicial Review of Arbitration and Related Model Cases

August 27, 2020 Supreme People's Court Monitor 1 Comment

For a longer project, I am carefully analyzing the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC’s) 2019 Opinions on the People’s Courts Providing Further Services and Guarantees for Belt & Road Construction (BRI Opinion #2) (关于人民法院进一步为“一带一路”建设提供司法服务和保障的意见, about which I previously wrote in January (at some length). Each phrase in an SPC Opinion has a particular meaning and usually a backstory. As I said in January, it takes knowledge of a constellation of related policies and practices to decode SPC Opinions. Those of us outside the Chinese court system realistically can be expected to identify only a portion of the references. This blogpost focuses on two phrases in Article 25 of BRI Opinion #2–“publish typical (model/exemplary) cases on an irregular basis, issue white papers at a suitable time (不定期公布典型案例, 适时发布白皮书).

What’s new?

In public speeches this month (August, 2020), two SPC judges revealed that the suitable time for issuing a white paper and model cases somewhat related to the BRI is “soon.” As I (and many others) have written, the SPC has used the political importance of the BRI to improve the legal infrastructure for and personnel handling the judicial review of arbitration. (As others have written, under Chinese arbitration law, the courts have a greater role in the review of arbitration.), Judge Shen Hongyu, deputy head of the SPC’s #4 Civil Division revealed in a speech in early August, reported in Legal Daily, that “in the future, a bilingual white paper annual report on the judicial review of arbitration in 2019 and analysis of typical cases on the judicial review of arbitration will be issued” (将发布《2019年度仲裁司法审查案件白皮书》（中英双语版）以及仲裁司法审查典型案例分析). The same news was repeated by #4 Civil Division Judge Ma Dongxu and Judge Shen Hongyu in a recent conference (held on-line) of the Chinese Arbitration Law Society.

White Papers

Issuing a judicial review of arbitration white paper would be a first for the #4 Civil Division and a step forward in transparency about the work of the SPC and judicial review of arbitration in particular. From the title, I surmise that the white paper will be nationally focused, similar to the SPC’s annual bilingual intellectual property white paper and environmental protection white paper. Although I have previously written about difficulties in locating full text versions of Chinese court white papers, I am quite sure that this white paper will be made accessible.

Late last year, the Beijing #4 Intermediate Court (and China University of Political Science and Law) issued a big data study of cases involving the judicial review of arbitration cases (analyzed here in English) I surmise that the SPC’s white paper it will show the success of the new judicial interpretations that the SPC issued in late 2017 and related notices as well as the pro-arbitration policy of the SPC. Greater openness about the judicial review of arbitration would be welcome by all interested parties. It is unclear whether the #4 Civil Division will give consolidated information about the cases that it reviews through the Prior Approval system, which is its version of the qingshi (请示，request for instructions), about which I have previously written. This article in the Kluwer Arbitration Blog provides a good summary of Chinese practitioner objections to the request for instruction procedures in the Prior Approval system.

Publishing typical cases

As I wrote last month and many times previously on this blog, the SPC frequently uses typical/model/exemplary cases, in several ways, including to supplement judicial interpretations and legislation. That was made clear by last month’s guidance on similar case search. The #4 Civil Division (the cases are issued by the SPC itself, of course) and the Supreme People’s Court Intellectual Property Court (SPCIPC) often use typical cases in analogous ways–unifying judicial standards. The press release that the SPC released in June on typical cases involving ship crew members was by SPC standards, quite blunt in pointing out the inadequacy of related law. (“Our country has not formulated a special crew law.. it lacks more targeted regulations…Typical cases combine the characteristics of the protection of the rights and interests of seafarers, analyze the law and reasoning, and fill the gap between the norms and the facts by extracting the main points of the judgments (我国尚未制定专门的船员法…缺乏更有针对性的规定。典型案例结合船员权益保护的特点，析法说理，通过裁判要旨的提炼，填补规范与事实之间的空隙)

Justice Luo Dongchuan, formerly the SPC vice president responsible for both the #4 Civil Division and the SPCIPC pointed out the gap-filling role of typical cases more discretely. (He has since been transferred to Fujian Province to serve as Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee’s Political-Legal Commission).The SPC issued BRI-related typical/model cases in 2015 and 2017 and BRI guiding cases in 2019. (For those interested, Stanford Law School’s Guiding Cases Project has translated the model and guiding cases (note that there is a trademark symbol for B & R cases). The legal rules in typical/model cases and guiding cases may eventually be incorporated into a judicial interpretation or legislation (explained in my earlier article).

Importance of the White Paper

I wrote in December of last year that one aspect of being in a leadership role in the SPC (referring to the president, vice presidents, division heads, deputy heads, and their equivalents in the affiliated institutions of the SPC) is ensuring that policies, actions, initiatives, and other decisions hit the target of being politically correct (post 19th Party Congress and post 4th Plenum) while being “problem-oriented,” that is, addressing relevant practical issues. Judge Shen skillfully hit that target in her speeches. She linked her first presentation to language in the Decision of the 4th Plenum of the 19th Party Congress, stating that “promoting external publicity on the rule of law and spreading the voice of the rule of law in China is an important manifestation of serving the overall situation of the Party and the country ( 推进对外法治宣传，传播中国法治声音，是服务党和国家工作大局的重要体现). As I asked in January, does it hit the target with foreign audiences? Is engaging special publicity for foreigners in fact useful in reassuring foreign governments, foreign state-owned companies, commercial entities, and individuals that their dispute is best heard in China?

Rather than special publicity, the bilingual white paper and model cases, aimed at both domestic and foreign audiences, are in fact better vehicles by which the domestic and foreign legal communities can assess how Chinese courts supervise arbitration, and how that compares to other jurisdictions. Because many trade, investment, and licensing agreements involving Chinese parties have arbitration clauses, this white paper is sure to be reviewed carefully by many.

administrative cases, big data, circuit courts, Court judgments

What Is the Impact of the SPC’s Circuit Courts?

June 10, 2020 Supreme People's Court Monitor 4 Comments

President Zhou Qiang’s May, 2020 report to the National People’s Congress (which I will analyze when time permits) revealed that the number of cases that the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has increased about 10% over last year to 38,498 cases accepted. This year’s report usefully set out a bar graph with the number of cases that the SPC accepted and concluded.

These (also from the report) show that in 2019, almost 60% of the SPC’s cases were heard in the six circuit courts.

This is not accidental, but the result of intentional SPC policy. Judge He Xiaorong, current head of the #2 Circuit Court (and former head of the SPC’s judicial reform office) stated five years ago–” after the circuit courts (literally tribunals) are established, the center of the work of SPC headquarters will shift to supervision and guidance, primarily trying cases that have a major guiding function in unifying the application of law, that can become guiding cases (巡回法庭普遍设立后，最高人民法院本部应当将工作重心转移到监督指导上，主要审理一些对统一法律适用有重大指导意义、具有重大示范价值、能够作为指导性案例的案件).

There has been one academic article in English (that I am aware of) (by Professors Chen and Wang) that focuses on the circuit courts, but looking at large scale policy rather than more granular analysis of circuit court decisions, whether in the form of judgments or rulings, or how circuit courts guide the lower courts, the impact on law practice in circuit court cities, and what it means for law students. I’ll set out some quick thoughts on each topic.

Circuit Court Judgments & Rulings

According to the research of Tsinghua Professor He Haibo and colleagues, most of the SPC documents are rulings rather than judgments. According to their data relating to 2017, 91% of the documents were rulings (relating to applications for retrial or trial supervision), with judgments accounting for about 4%, which in the authors’ view, makes it difficult for the SPC to fully fulfill its function of supervising and guiding the lower courts. This statement has made me think more about what the circuit courts are doing, particularly behind the scenes, as “supervising and guiding” the lower courts has multiple meanings.

What appears not to be generally known is that a substantial proportion of the cases heard in the circuit courts are administrative cases, although Chinese law firms have done many big data reports of commercial cases heard in the circuit courts. I am not aware of a comprehensive study on the number and type of administrative cases in the circuit courts. This report on the #3 Circuit notes that approximately 70% of the cases were administrative, without breaking out annual statistics. I understand that similar statistics are true for the #1, #2, and #6 Circuit Courts. This report from a Shaanxi law firm on #6 Circuit cases (based on 2017-first half of 2019) found that practically all administrative rulings (96%) rejected the applicant’s request to retry or remand the cases (see the pie chart below).

The law firm commented that of the administrative cases that were accepted, most of them involved the taking of collective land and the condemnation of housing on state-owned land, indicating government enforcement issues (among others). The comments of the lawyers on the judgments indicated that “administration according to law” is still a long term goal, particularly in western China, as the cases revealed instances of local governments:

condemning or taking land and housing without obtaining approval;
taking land or housing in excess of administrative authority;
taking land or housing first, then obtaining approval;
failing to compensate real estate owners or land use rights holders;
failing to follow required procedures;
demonstrating poor awareness of law, including procedural and evidentiary requirements;
failing to protect the rights of related persons;
failing to comply with open government regulations.

This data is consistent with what I had understood from other sources. One informed commentator mentioned that circuit courts are reluctant to order the retrial of administrative cases. He attributed it to “holistic” thinking on the part of judges (my term–considering factors other than those relating to the case), particularly social stability, the need to uphold the prestige of government, etc.

However, in addition to judgments and rulings, circuit courts use other ways of guiding local courts, and indirectly, local governments.

How the circuit courts guide the lower courts

Doing some further digging, I found that circuit courts use their judgments and rulings in other more traditional ways to guide the lower courts. Among those are:

Case guidance–in this earlier blogpost, I wrote above case guidance of the #2 circuit, approved in a regional conference. The #2 circuit has launched a case a week series this month, to not only guide the lower courts, but to provide some typical case guidance to legal practitioners and the general public;
Internal conferences–these two links are two examples of the #4 and #5 circuits, but with additional digging, reports of conferences convened by other circuit courts can be found;
bulletins for internal distribution, such as the #3 Circuit’s Reports on Administrative Trial Situation (行政审判情况通报);
Research reports, for internal reference–this report mentions one done for the 6th Circuit;
internal conferences serving as a platform for issuing more specific guidance to the lower courts under the circuit court’s jurisdiction, such as the First Circuit’s Conference Summary on Some Issues of the Application of Law in Administrative Cases: 最高人民法院第一巡回法庭关于行政审判法律适用若干问题的会议纪要

Circuit Courts and Elite Law Firms

Another impact of the circuit courts is to attract some of the elite Beijing or Shanghai law firms to establish branches in circuit court cities. Tian Tong Law Firm appears to be one of the first, but I’ve also noticed that some of the other big Chinese law firms have followed Tian Tong’s lead. The impact on lawyer career paths remains to be seen, but it is likely to improve the level of litigation practice in some locations.

Circuit Courts and Chinese law students

Finally, having a circuit court nearby has an unrecognized benefit for Chinese law students, many of whom are educated in a very traditional way, with little experience in thinking through legal problems in a comprehensive way or are unused to using their research skills analytically. It also enables the circuit courts to have greater intellectual support, without expanding their headcount. From my conversations with law students who have interned in circuit courts, the experience has given them the opportunity to undertake thorough analysis on new issues and to have their work reviewed carefully by highly qualified and experienced mentor judges or judge’s assistants. It has also given some law students an appreciation of the demands of working “in the system” rather than the more relaxed environment of a university, as several of my students found when they didn’t realize that they needed to inform their supervisors ahead of time about taking leave from their internships to return to school!

big data, Case law, court reforms, Uncategorized, Wechat

Law-related Wechat public accounts, 2018 update （1）

November 27, 2018 Supreme People's Court Monitor Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2018-02-03 at 10.13.48 AM Wechat, as most people with an interest in China know, has become the preferred form of social media in China. The legal community in China has taken to it too.

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 lurks on Wechat, so articles published may disappear, although they often reappear elsewhere.

Some are official accounts of government entities, including the courts and others are public accounts (公众账号) established by companies, law firms, universities, societies, other organizations, or individuals. In November, 2018 the Cyberspace Administration of China said that tightened management of internet content producers would be a “new norm,: and Tencent reduced the number of permitted corporate public accounts from five to two and individual accounts from two to one. More information on this development elsewhere.

Below is the first part of a guide to some useful law-related Wechat public accounts focusing on accounts related to the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Please contact me through the comment function or email with additional suggestions.

The official Party and government accounts enable the user to keep current on the issues and latest Party and government position in that area of law–new policy, new legislation, and new reforms, or the official response to a current hot topic. The Central Political-Legal Commission has one, the Central Supervision Commission, as do both the SPC and Supreme People’s Procuratorate, as well as their local counterparts. Academic journals have a different audience that requires more nuance.

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 smartphones. Party/government 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, such as the latest important speech of a leader. Even some articles published in institutional public accounts may have a “netizen” tone and use netizen slang and images.

Institution	Account name
National Supervision Commission	中央纪委监委网站
Central Political-Legal Commission	中央政法长安剑（recently renamed, read here

Official accounts linked to the SPC

linked to SPC and its affiliated institutions
Institution	Account name	Content
Supreme People’s Court	最高人民法院	Official view of SPC; also republishes Xinhua articles
People’s Court Daily	人民法院报	Official view of SPC; also republishes Xinhua articles
Institute for Applied Jurisprudence (since July, 2018, under the new institute director, the account has published fewer articles than previously)	中国应用法学研究所	Had previously carried accounts of conferences and academic talks, translations of foreign materials; other articles
China Applied Jurisprudence (academic journal)(from Sept., 2018)	中国应用法学	Publishes excerpts from journal articles (recent article included: article on people’s assessors pilot project; also republishes other articles of interest to editor; translations of foreign materials, including an excerpt from “Building a Diverse Bench” (NYU Brennan Center publication)
Journal of Law Application (academic journal affiliated with National Judges College	法律适用	Publishes excerpts from journal articles, some by judges, others by academics
Alternative Dispute Resolution Reform in China	多元化纠纷解决机制	Articles on alternative dispute resolution in China and foreign experience
Database Faxin (affiliated with the People’s Court Press)	法信	Case analysis, analysis of cases on specific issues
China Trial (journal)	中国审判	Excerpts from articles in the journal
People’s Judicature	人民司法	Excerpts from articles in the journal
Case Research Institute of National Judges College	司法案例研究院	Case analysis, excerpts from its academic journal (Journal of Law Application (Cases))

SPC Information Center	智慧法院进行时	Reports on informatization of courts
Administrative enforcement and administrative trial	行政执法与行政审判	Articles related to administrative litigation & enforcement
National Judges College	国家法官学院	Official account; articles reporting on the National Judges College & its local branches
People’s Assessors	人民陪审	Articles related to the people’s assessor system & its reforms

Several SPC judges and SPC officials have Wechat public accounts. They have obtained approval to have them. Among them are:

Individual affiliated with SPC	Account name	Content
He Fan (何帆), head of the planning department of the SPC’s Judicial Reform Office	法影斑斓	Judicial reform
Yu Tongzhi (于同志), judge of SPC #2 Criminal Division, editor of 刑事审判参考	说刑品案	Excerpts from the journal, articles on criminal law and criminal procedure issues (some republished), including original articles by Judge Yu himself, generally on broader criminal law issues.
Wang Dongmin (王东敏), judge of the SPC #2 Civil Division	法律之树	Issues of civil and civil procedure law

As a general (but not directed comment), if judges on the SPC express views on issues that may come before them, it would appear to raise issues similar to those that arise in the rest of the world–the propriety of extrajudicial writing–a sample of writings on this issue from other jurisdictions found here. Persons who can provide relevant information concerning relevant SPC ethics provisions, and restrictions in civil law rather than common law jurisdictions, please contact me.

big data, circuit courts, Communist Party and the Courts, Court Operations, Court Reform, Structure of the Court

What significance does China’s updated court law have?

November 1, 2018 Supreme People's Court Monitor 3 Comments

szzy — main premises of the Shenzhen intermediate court

The National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee recently revised the Organic Law of the People’s Courts （People’s Courts Law, English translation available at Chinalawtranslate.com), the framework law by which the Chinese courts operate. The NPC took the lead in drafting it, rather than the Supreme People’s Court (SPC). It retains the framework of the old law, incorporates legislative changes and many judicial reforms, leaves some flexibility for future reforms, and updates some of the general principles in the old law that apparently are on the dust heap of history (历史的垃圾堆). Some of the principles newly incorporated reflect the reorientation of the Chinese courts, over the past 40 years while others represent long-term goals. Some provisions originally in earlier drafts have been deleted because the NPC Constitution and Law Committee considered that the time was not ripe for incorporating them.

The law contains some oddities, such as using two terms for judges, both “审判员” (shenpanyuan) (used four times) and “法官” (faguan)(used 38 times). None of the official commentary has explained the reason for the mixed terminology. My own guess is that it is linked to the use of “审判员” in the Constitution, but anyone with more insights into this is welcome to provide clarity.

The People’s Courts Law does not stand on its own. It is connected with other legislation, such as the Judges’ Law (amendments under consideration, with the drafting led by the SPC (this 2017 article criticizes some of the disconnects between the two) .the three procedure laws, the Civil Servants Law, as well as with Communist Party (Party) regulations. As the courts are led by the Party, its regulations also affect how the amended People’s Courts Law will operate when it becomes effective on 1 January 2019.

General Provisions

Some of the principles newly incorporated into the law reflect the reorientation of the Chinese courts over the past 40 years towards more civil disputes and an increasing number of administrative disputes, while others represent long-term goals.

Article 2 has relegated some of the dated language from what was previously Article 3 to the dust heap of history–references to the “system of the dictatorship of the proletariat,” “socialist property,” and the “smooth progress of the socialist revolution”). Those have been replaced by language such as “ensuring the innocent are not prosecuted,” “protecting the lawful rights and interests of individuals and organizations,” preserving national security and social order, social fairness and justice, and the uniformity, dignity, and authority of the state’s legal system.

The principle of “ensuring the innocent are not prosecuted” makes its first appearance in the People’s Courts Law. I recommend this new article by a member of the Beijing Procuratorate, (in part) criticizing the poisonous effect of the “declared innocent” performance indicators of procurators on Chinese criminal justice.

On protecting the “lawful interests of individuals and organizations,” rapidly changing judicial policy and inconsistencies between criminal and civil law may mean that what is recognized as valid under civil law may be considered a bribe under criminal law. Additionally, although the People’s Courts Law deletes language that distinguishes among owners of different types of Chinese companies, Chinese criminal law still does (see this chart setting out sentencing guidelines, for example).

Article 6, on judicial fairness, contains language on respecting and protecting human rights. Foreigners may think it is directed at them, but it is more likely aimed at Chinese citizens.

Article 7 calls for the courts to carry out judicial openness, except as otherwise provided by law. It is generally recognized that the courts are much more transparent than before, although specialist analysis in and out of China points out that there remains much to be done.

Article 8 incorporates judicial responsibility systems into the law (a prominent feature of the recent judicial reforms), described by two judges as the “sword of Damocles hanging over judges” (( 法官办案责任追究是时刻悬挂在法官们头上的“达摩克利斯之剑”) and a topic regarding which more dispassionate analysis is making its way into print.

Article 11 has important language about the right of the masses (i.e. ordinary people, that term is alive and well) to know of (知情), participate in (参与·), and supervise the courts (according to law). However, the devil is in the details, as procedures for exercising these rights remain limited and sometimes lacking.

Organization (set up and authority) of the courts

Article 15 mentions some of the specialized courts that have been established over the last thirty years:

Maritime courts, legislation found here; translation of SPC regulations on jurisdiction found here.
Intellectual property courts, legislation found here, a summary of SPC regulations on jurisdiction found here.
Financial courts, see the SPC’s regulations on the Shanghai financial court.
The military courts still lack their own legislation (an earlier discussion of this issue is found here).

Article 14 relates to the special Xinjiang Construction & Production Corps (Bingtuan) courts (not a specialized court under Chinese law, rather a court with its own special jurisdiction). Those interested can look to its NPC Standing Committee legislation, SPC more detailed regulations, and Professor Pittman Potter’s research on these courts.

Article 16 incorporates the new China International Commercial Court’s first instance cases.

Article 18 incorporates the guiding case system into the law.

Article 19 crystallizes the SPC’s circuit courts (tribunals) into law (SPC regulations on the jurisdiction of those courts found here).

Articles 26 and 27 give courts some flexibility on their internal structure (courts in remote areas with few cases need not establish divisions, while large city courts can have multiple specialized ones. (Earlier blogposts have mentioned establishing bankruptcy divisions, for example.) Article 27 also mentions establishing (or not) comprehensive divisions (the administrative departments of courts, that according to a recent academic article can constitute close to half the headcount in a court and that some court leaders value more highly than operational divisions (the divisions hearing cases).

Trial Organization

This section of the law incorporates the current judicial reforms in several ways, including:

In Article 30, on the operation of collegial panels and requiring the court president to be the presiding judge when s(he) participates in a collegial panel;
Mentioning in Article 31 that dissenting opinions are to be recorded and that members of the collegial panel (or sole judge) are the ones to sign their judgments and the court is to issue it;
Article 34 gives space for eliminating the role of people’s assessors to determine issues of law, linked to Article 22 of the People’s Assessors Law;
Articles 36-39 includes new provisions on judicial/adjudication committees. It consolidates current reforms by crystalizing specialist judicial committees (civil/criminal). An important reform is requiring the views of the judicial committee to be disclosed in the judgment (the view is binding on the collegial panel that has submitted the case. These articles also include related stipulations such as quorum requirements and making judicial committee members responsible for their views and votes. (See previous scholarship on this important institution).
Article 37 incorporates into law previous SPC regulations on judicial interpretations, specifying that they must be approved by the full (plenary) SPC judicial committee while guiding cases can be approved by a specialized committee of the SPC judicial committee.

Court Personnel

This section of the law uses the terminology :”审判员” (shenpanyuan) and “法官” (faguan). It also incorporates the personnel reforms set out in the judicial reform documents in several ways: quota judge system; selecting higher court judges from the lower courts; the roles of judicial assistants and clerks (changed from the old model); other support personnel in the courts; a new career track for judges, including judicial selection committees; preference to hiring judges with legal qualifications;

Article 47 requires court presidents to have legal knowledge and experience. It has long been an issue that court presidents have been appointed more for their political than legal expertise. Under the Chinese court system, an effective court president requires both sets of skills.

It appears that the reform of having judges below the provincial level appointed by the provincial level is not yet in place,

Safeguards for the courts’ exercise of authority

This section of the law links with the Judges Law and the People’s Police Law (in relation to judicial police).

Article 52 gives courts the right to refuse to engage in activities that violate their legally prescribed duties (will this end the phenomenon of judges sweeping streets?);

Article 53 relates to reforms relating to enforcement of judgments (and the social credit system);

Article 55 relates to judicial (and judicial personnel training, both theoretical/(ideological) and professional)–some earlier blogposts have shed light on this topic.

Article 56 indicates that headcount for court personnel is subject to special regulation（人民法院人员编制实行专项管理, distinct from other civil servants.

Article 58 incorporates into the law President Zhou Qiang’s focus on the informatization (including the use of the internet and big data) of the Chinese courts.

Drafting process

The drafting process (the explanation and other articles have the details) reflects the drafting of much Chinese legislation (further insights about the process from Jamie Horsley here). The SPC Party Group designated personnel to research specific issues and engage with the drafters. The drafting involved several years of soft consultation by the drafters of relevant Party and government authorities, plus limited public consultations. Among the central Party authorities consulted were: Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Central Organizational Department (in charge of cadres); Central Staffing Commission (in charge of headcount); Central Political-Legal Committee. On the government side: Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate; State Council Legislative Affairs Office; Ministry of Finance, National People’s Congress Legal Work Committee. Investigations and consultations were also done at a local level.

alternative dispute resolution, bankruptcy law, big data, Case law, Communist Party and the Courts, court reforms

What to Expect in the Fifth Round of Judicial Reforms

August 8, 2018 Supreme People's Court Monitor Leave a comment

Screen Shot 2018-07-29 at 8.10.14 AM

On July 24, the Chinese authorities held the first post-19th Party Congress national conference on judicial reform in Shenzhen, entitled “Promoting Comprehensive Deepening of Judicial Reform.” Holding the conference in Shenzhen is significant, because it is considered synonymous with reform and openness. The leaders on the podium in the photo above (members of the Leading Small Group on Judicial Reform) (all men), include:

Secretary of the Central Political Legal Committee, Guo Shengkun (Guo);
President of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), Zhou Qiang;
Chief Procurator General Zhang Jun;
Central Military Commission Political Legal Committee Party Secretary;
Minister of Public Security;
Minister of State Security;
Commander of the People’s Armed Police.

Attendees of the conference included the Party Secretaries of the Political Legal Committees of all provinces/autonomous regions/cities, and likely senior leaders from all of the systems.

Readers of this blog will not be surprised that comprehensive deepening of judicial reform was the subject of the conference as a December, 2017, blogpost flagged that the new phraseology is “deepen the reform of the judicial system with comprehensive integrated reforms” (深化司法体制改革综合配套改革) (and there is a significant overlap with some of the issues Judge Jiang mentioned). The language is found deep in Xi Jinping’s 19th Communist Party Congress Report.

The quick (and incomplete) summary below is of some of the court-related issues from the report of Guo’s speech at the conference that He Fan (head of the planning section of the SPC’s judicial reform office) posted on his Wechat public account. He was one of the many attendees. None of the analysis below (in italics) should be attributed to him.

It can be expected that the court-related issues will be incorporated into the next judicial reform plan outline. What is on the court-related reform list? What issues remain unresolved?

Strengthen and optimize Communist Party leadership, Scientifically position the responsibilities and boundaries of the Party Committee, Political and Legal Committee, strengthen functions such as overall coordination, planning and deployment, supervision and implementation. This of course listed first.What does this mean in practice for judicial system and particularly the operation of the criminal justice system, such as the ongoing campaign against organized crime (see this earlier blogpost)?
Clarify the functions of the four-level courts,–improve the SPC circuit courts’ working mechanism; establish the Shanghai Financial Court, steadily expand the Internet Court pilots; explore the deepening of the reform of cross-administrative district courts and procuratorates, and explore the establishment of a national-level intellectual property appeal hearing mechanism.

Developments have occurred on some of these. The Shanghai Circuit Court will start operations soon, with regulations on its jurisdiction just issued and well-regarded judges appointed to senior positions. The mention of an intellectual property appeals court is significant, as that has been mentioned in earlier government documents and it is on the wish list of the intellectual property law community. The cross-administrative district courts are mentioned in the previous court reform plan, with some pilot projects. On SPC’s circuit courts are taking on a greater percentage of the SPC’s cases, (as mentioned earlier on this blog) SPC judges work in the circuit courts while their families remain in Beijing, so at some personal cost to judges involved.

3. Improve institutional management, promote a combination of flat management and professionalization, adhere to the simultaneous transformation of comprehensive and operational entities, and promote the return of judicial personnel to the front line. As this blog has repeatedly mentioned (and He Xin/Kwai Hang Ng have detailed in their new book, Embedded Courts), Chinese courts (as courts and political/legal institutions) have large “comprehensive offices” (engaging in functions not directly related to judicial work). A recent study of several courts in Zhejiang province published in an academic journal affiliated with the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence detailed the percentages. With the reduction in the number of judges and the explosion in the number of cases, there is a great amount of pressure to allocate more judges to the “front line” of handling cases. Judges with some measure of seniority inevitably have both administrative and judicial responsibilities.

4. Improve the supervision management mechanism of the president and division chiefs, and standardize the functions of the judicial committee, the committee of court leaders, which has a number of functions, often serving to diffuse responsibility for difficult cases (Embedded Courts has more insights on this, and this blog has an earlier post on proposed reforms and related problems). Improve the professional judges meeting (mentioned in last year’s SPC regulations, I hope to have something more to say on this in a later blogpost). Improve the disciplinary mechanism of judges. (It would be an improvement to have greater transparency on the results.) Accelerate the construction of an electronic file with the simultaneous generation of the case and the entire process online case handling system. This has been an ongoing proposal. Shenzhen is taking the lead with this. Also it would be an improvement to have greater transparency on cases filed.

6. On judicial “standardization” –improve reference to similar cases, case guidelines, the guiding case mechanisms, implement mandatory search system for similar cases and related cases. We will carry out an in-depth national judicial standardization inspections. This is sending two signals–greater implementation of China’s case law system (as I have written about earlier), and the continued use of government/Party inspection campaigns (reflecting the administrative aspects of the Chinese courts).

7. Improve the performance appraisal system. Scientifically set the performance appraisal indicator system for handling cases, and guide judicial personnel to handle more cases, handle cases quickly, and handle cases well. Use big data technology to accurately measure the quality of the case and strive for convincing results. The assessment results are used as an important basis for the level of salary, job promotion…This is an important and unresolved issue for the Chinese courts–how to appraise judges. Outside of China, many scholars have written about this, including Carl Minzner, William Hurst & Jonathan Kinkel. A good deal of research has been done within the Chinese court system concerning this (see this summary of a report published earlier this year by a team of Guangdong Higher People’s Court judges–discussing how the “civil servant/administrative model” predominates and suggesting that China should be looking to other jurisdictions for models, as judicial evaluation is a worldwide issue. Case closing percentages continues to be very important for Chinese judges. Is big data technology the answer? Is this consistent with encouraging judges to write more reasoned decisions? This appears to signal a continuation of the judge as factory worker system described in this blogpost.

8. In the area of criminal law, and criminal procedure, there are mixed developments. On the one hand, greater encouragement for using the plea bargaining with Chinese characteristics (please see Jeremy Daum’s deep dive into the pilots). The merging of the arrest and prosecution stages is also mentioned. Guo also mentioned measures to enable appointing defense counsel in death penalty cases, having full coverage of defense counsel in criminal cases (Jeremy Daum has comments also on the system of stationing lawyers in detention houses), requiring lawyers to represent petitioners in criminal collateral appeals cases, as well as greater use of live witnesses at trial。 The National Judges College academic journal Journal of Law Application just published an article by a Beijing Higher Court judge, reviewing the duty lawyer scheme, with analogous findings to Jeremy’s.

9. For those interested in how the supervision commission is/will affect criminal cases, Guo mentions establishing a system for linking the supervision’s investigatory system with the criminal procedure system (said to improve the battle against corruption, the question is the extent to which individual rights are protected).

10. On foreign related matters, Guo mentions innovating foreign-related work, and improving cooperation on international enforcement and judicial cooperation. These continue to be difficult issues, with no likely resolution in sight, particularly criminal and also civil. As I have mentioned before China is participating in the drafting of the Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgment, but there are major inconsistencies between the provisions of the draft convention, and the Choice of Court Convention which China signed last September.

Guo highlights improving an initial appointment system for judges and procurators, expanding open recruitment so that talented people will be attracted to becoming and remain judges. He calls for better coordination between the law schools and professional training, systems for provincial level appointment of judges (and procurators), with better policies on temporary appointment (挂职) (a system used for academics to work in the system for a period of one or two years, and judges/procurators from higher levels to work at the basic level or in a poorer area), exchanges, promotions, and resignation.

In his recommendations, Guo tips his hat to judicial (and procurator) dissatisfaction with status and pay with his statement “uphold resolving a combination of ideological and practical issues, motivate cadres and police to the greatest extent possible.” 坚持解决思想问题和解决实际问题相结合，最大限度调动政法干警积极性”-as this blog has reported, a combination of those issues, excessive work, and significant amounts of time allocated to “studying documents” has led younger experienced judges (and procurators) to decide to resign.

big data, Communist Party and the Courts

Signals in Supreme People’s Court President Zhou Qiang’s 2018 report to NPC (part 1)

May 10, 2018 Supreme People's Court Monitor 2 Comments

Screen Shot 2018-05-10 at 12.54.58 PM For those with the ability (or at least the patience) to decode Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang’s March, 2018 report to the National People’s Congress, it provides insights into the Chinese courts, economy, and society, and of course politics. This blogpost will address selected aspects of the first part of the report because of competing time demands.

Report drafting

To most of the world, President Zhou Qiang’s reports to the National People’s Congress (NPC) differ little from year to year. However to President Zhou Qiang and the team of people tasked with preparing a draft that would not be thrown back in their faces, the challenges in 2018 were more formidable than previously. This year’s report needed to highlight the SPC’s achievements of the last five years, signal that its work in the next year is harmonized with the post-19th Party Congress New Era, and hit the right notes with NPC delegates, who have in the past voted against court reports in significant numbers.

According to this report, the drafting group, which started work in late October (after the 19th Party Congress), and as anyone familiar with China today would expect, communicated through Wechat. The high stakes report meant that President Zhou Qiang summoned members for drafting sessions during the Chinese new year holiday. The group submitted 37 drafts to President Zhou Qiang and other senior leaders, and as this blog reported in previous years on this blog, senior court leaders traveled the country to seek the views of NPC delegates and many others.

This means (as I have written before, and I have discussed in greater detail in a forthcoming paper) that the statistics have been specially selected.

The summary below (part 1) is not comprehensive but provides some highlights.

Executive summary (SPC section)

The English language Xinhua report on Zhou Qiang report drew on the introductory section, which was an executive summary of the work of the courts in the last five years, but this section will focus on the summary of SPC’s accomplishments

The SPC heard about 82,383 cases and closed about 79,692 ones, up 60.6 percent and 58.8 percent over the previous five-year period respectively. Much of this caseload is attributable to the circuit courts. For those interested, SPC court hearings (that are being heard openly) are streamed or are saved in a video library on the SPC website: (http://tingshen.court.gov.cn/). (The Supreme People’s Monitor can be seen attending a hearing here).

As mentioned previously, some SPC proceedings, including capital punishment review and review of lower court rulings not to enforce foreign or foreign-related arbitral awards, are not considered “court hearings.”）

According to a Xinhua report on 10 May, the six circuit courts of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) accepted 2,922 (and concluded 1909) civil, administrative and criminal cases in the first three months of 2018, accounting for 67.2 percent of the total cases of these types accepted by the SPC. It is possible to view circuit court hearings on-line on the SPC website.

A total of 8,355 petitions were handled by the circuit courts (in the first 3 months of 2018), accounting for 78.92 percent of petitions handled by the SPC. It is clear two of the goals of establishing the circuit courts (the SPC near your home (“家门口的最高法院”） are being achieved: 1)moving the hearing of many cases to the circuit courts; 2) moving the processing of most petitions to the circuit courts. It is not clear from these statistics how many petitioners sought to petition the circuit courts (and SPC headquarters) –there are likely many more petitioners who visited than petitions accepted. As was discussed earlier on this blog, the SPC is seeking to involve lawyers in the criminal petitioning (collateral appeals) process.

The SPC highlighted that in the past five years it had issued 119 judicial interpretations (some of which have been discussed on this blog, many translated by Chinalawtranslate.com) and issued 80 guiding cases (link to cases and analysis) (as Jeremy Daum has written, and Mark Cohen has also noted, the statistics show they are not often used by the courts), but did not release numbers on the other types of documents it had issued (this blog has discussed some of them) or the number of model cases or other cases issued by SPC divisions (this blog has recently focused on ones issued by the criminal divisions).

1. Criminal cases

As is usual, President Zhou Qiang discussed criminal cases first, the topics reflecting their political priority. A total of 6.07 million suspects were convicted in first instance trials of 5.49 million criminal cases. (During that period the Chinese courts heard almost 89 million cases, so criminal cases are clearly a small proportion of the cases heard.)

In keeping with the current political priorities, President Zhou Qiang said the courts “resolutely protect the nation’s political security, in particular the security of the state power and the political system.” Similar to last year, no statistics were given for the number of national security cases heard. He does mention the normative document the the SPC issued jointly with other authorities on religious extremism and terrorism (discussed here).

President Zhou Qiang then discusses corruption-related offenses, mentioning the asset recovery interpretation discussed last year on this blog. Thereafter he focuses on property and personal safety-related crimes, mentioning this year’s organized crime normative document (this blog discussed it earlier this year), as well as (among others) its accomplishments relating drug cases and medical violence.

He then discussed cases involving violence against women and children (130,000 cases over the past 5 years, food safety (42000) and environmental protection crimes (88,000), and telecommunications crime. Local court white papers have posted detailed statistics concerning many of these crimes (see a Ningbo court white paper on sexual assault cases against minors and a Shanghai district’s court white paper on environmental protection crimes).

In the concluding paragraph, President Zhou Qiang discusses SPC participation in comprehensive security management. President Zhou Qiang mentions implementing an additional responsibility system on judges of publicizing the law (普法). This is further to a 2017 notice of the Central Committee and State Council’s General Offices Opinion on State Organs implementing “whoever enforces the law publicizes the law” law publicity responsibility system (关于实行国家机关“谁执法谁普法”普法责任制的意见) that imposes responsibility on state organs enforcing the law (administrative and justice) to publicize the law. Judges are to use court documents, open hearings, circuit courts, streaming of court cases, and posting legal documents on-line to promote the use of cases to explain the law. It is clear that the SPC is taking the circuit court responsibility system seriously, as the SPC’s #2 Circuit Court has been posting a series of articles on its circuit visits around the Northeast (see here). This adds somewhat to judges’ workload, but this type of responsibility is not as great a concern as the more general responsibility system.

big data, Family Law

Big data update on contested divorces in China

April 24, 2018 Supreme People's Court Monitor 1 Comment

Recently, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Judicial Cases Research Center (最高人民法院司法案例研究院)(affiliated with the National Judicial College) issued a big data report on contested divorces in 2016-17, a follow up to their report of 18 months ago (the charts below are from the report). The report was done in conjunction with the SPC’s big data center. The Judicial Cases Research Center publishes big data reports occasionally, some in the form of this report.

As noted in earlier blogposts, the 4th Judicial Five Year Plan calls for reforms in judicial statistics:

Reform mechanisms for judicial statistics with the idea of “big data, big picture, and big service” as a guide; make a system of standards for judicial statistics that has scientific classifications and complete information, gradually building a model for analysis of empirical evidence that complies with the reality of judicial practice and judicial rules, and establish a national archive of court judgment opinions and a national center for big data on judicial information.

As I discuss in one of my forthcoming articles, the language quoted above contains no commitment to release to the public any of this new and improved big data, but careful observation has revealed that some of the more detailed big data from the SPC big data center is being published in one of the SPC’s academic journals.

It shows that in 2017, first instance contested divorces exceeded 1,400,00, somewhat more than in 2016.

Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 5.32.27 PM Almost three quarters (73%)of the plaintiffs in first instance divorce cases were women. Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 5.39.20 PM

Mostly couples sued for divorce on the basis that they no longer were compatible, and in about 15% of cases domestic violence was alleged.

Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 5.43.42 PM.png

Domestic violence was alleged most often in Guangdong, Guizhou and Guangxi.

Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 5.44.00 PM.png

Most of the domestic violence alleged was physical violence. Screen Shot 2018-04-23 at 5.44.43 PM

In the first instance divorce cases, 91% of the domestic violence was committed by men on women.

Screen Shot 2018-04-24 at 6.43.33 PM

arbitration, big data, foreign-related cases, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan

Supreme People’s Court strengthens judicial review of arbitration

November 9, 2017 Supreme People's Court Monitor 1 Comment

liu guixiang at arbitration summit — Judge Liu Guixiang speaking at the China Arbitration Summit

At China’s Arbitration Summit in late September, Liu Guixiang, Chief Judge of the #1 Circuit Court, called attention to a notice that the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued earlier this year to strengthen judicial review of arbitration. The notice (Notice concerning some questions regarding the centralized handling of judicial review of arbitration cases关于仲裁司法审件归口办理有关问题的通知) is linked to the likely increasing number of cases involving judicial review of arbitration matters, linked to the increasing number of arbitrations involving Chinese parties (and the One Belt One Road initiative) both in China and elsewhere in the world, including Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre. (The notice highlights data collection problems).

The notice, reproduced below, is not an SPC judicial interpretation. Unlike judicial interpretations, notices are not required to be published. It seems that the SPC itself has not officially published it, but several official websites have published it, as have a number of Wechat accounts.

A quick search reveals that the notice drew on a 2014 study by the Guangdong courts summarizing the results of pilot projects (including Shenzhen) that the SPC commissioned, involving cooperation with the now independent Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration. As is usual, Guangdong and Shenzhen have led the way as pilot areas for judicial reform. The study highlighted a list of problems with the way lower courts review arbitration related issues, including lack of consistency in reviewing cases. The study also highlighted problems in tracking case data.

As Judge Liu also mentioned (as has this blog), the SPC is working on a comprehensive judicial interpretation on that subject). That judicial interpretation is still being drafted, with the #4 Civil Division of the SPC taking the lead.

A very rough translation and some comments written in italics follow. (Many thanks to an anonymous and well-informed follower of this blog for bringing the notice to my attention and for some thoughts.) Please call translation glitches/mistakes to my attention.

最高人民法院
关于仲裁司法审查案件归口办理
有关问题的通知

法[2017]152号

Supreme People’s Court

Notice Concerning Some Questions regarding the centralized handling of judicial review of arbitration cases

Fa (2017) #152

各省、自治区、直辖市高级人民法院，解放军军事法院，新疆维吾尔自治区高级人民法院生产建设兵团分院：

To the provincial, autonomous region, directly administered municipality higher people’s courts, People’s Liberation Army Military Court, Production and Construction Corps Branch of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region Higher People’s Court:

为依法正确审理仲裁司法审查案件，保证裁判尺度的统一，维护当事人的合法权益，促进仲裁事业健康有序发展及多元化纠纷解决机制的建立，现就各级人民法院办理仲裁司法审查案件的有关问题通知如下：

To try correctly judicial review of arbitration cases according to law and guarantee a unified yardstick for judicial decision-making, protect the legal rights of parties, promote the healthy and orderly development of arbitration matters and the establishment of a diverse dispute resolution mechanism, we notify the various levels of the people’s court handling judicial review of arbitration cases of the following:

一、各级人民法院审理涉外商事案件的审判庭（合议庭）作为专门业务庭（以下简称专门业务庭）负责办理本通知规定的仲裁司法审查案件。

I. The trial divisions (collegial panels) trying foreign-related commercial cases shall be the specialized trial divisions (below, “specialized trial divisions) responsible for undertaking the judicial review of arbitration as set out in this notice.

This means that SPC is requiring trial divisions (or collegial panels, in smaller courts) handling foreign-related commercial matters to be responsible for reviewing the arbitration related matters described in the next paragraph. It is a plus for competency/consistency in arbitration-related matters.

二、当事人申请确认仲裁协议效力的案件，申请撤销我国内地仲裁机构仲裁裁决的案件，申请认可和执行香港特别行政区、澳门特别行政区、台湾地区仲裁裁决的案件、申请承认和执行外国仲裁裁决等仲裁司法审查案件，由各级人民法院专门业务庭办理。

II. In cases in which a party applies to have the validity of an arbitration agreement recognized, cases in which application is made to cancel a domestic arbitration commission’s award, cases in which application is made to recognize (认可) and enforce a Hong Kong SAR or Macau SAR arbitration award, recognize (认可) and enforce a Taiwan area arbitration award, application is made to recognize (承认) and enforce a foreign arbitral award, shall be handled by the specialized trial divisions of each level of court.

This paragraph describes the types of cases covered by the notice–the types of judicial review of arbitration matters and that these cases should be handled by the specialized trial division of each level of court designated in the paragraph I. There is a difference in terminology (bolded above, but not in the original Chinese) when referring to the recognition of arbitral awards from Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan as distinguished from foreign arbitral awards, emphasizing that awards from these jurisdictions are considered part of “one country.” Notice that cases involving domestic arbitration awards or disputes over the validity of an arbitration agreement to submit a dispute to domestic arbitration are also to be reviewed by the specialized trial division. A big plus for consistency and competency in judicial review of arbitration matters.

专门业务庭经审查裁定认可和执行香港特别行政区、澳门特别行政区、台湾地区仲裁裁决，承认和执行外国仲裁裁决的，交由执行部门执行。

When a specialized trial division, after review, has ruled to recognize and enforce a Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macau Special Administrative Region, Taiwan Region arbitration award, recognize and enforce a foreign arbitral award, the enforcement shall be transferred to the enforcement departments for enforcement.

三、一审法院作出的不予受理、驳回起诉、管辖权异议裁定涉及仲裁协议效力的，当事人不服该裁定提起上诉的案件，由二审人民法院专门业务庭办理。

III. When the first instance court makes a ruling which relates to the validity of an arbitration agreement relating not to accept, to reject a filing or objection to jurisdiction, and a party disagrees with the ruling and appeals, the specialized trial division of the second instance court should handle it.

This provision channels appeals relating to arbitration matters to specialists in the second instance courts, again a plus for competency and consistency.

四、各级人民法院应当建立仲裁司法审查案件的数据信息集中管理平台，加强对申请确认仲裁协议效力的案件，申请撤销或者执行我国内地仲裁机构仲裁裁决的案件，申请认可和执行香港特别行政区、澳门特别行政区、台湾地区仲裁裁决的案件，申请承认和执行外国仲裁裁决的案件，以及涉及确认仲裁协议效力的不予受理、驳回起诉、管辖权异议等仲裁司法审查案件的信息化管理和数据分析，有效保证法律适用的正确性和裁判尺度的统一性。此项工作由最高人民法院民事审判第四庭与人民法院信息技术服务中心具体负责。

IV. Each level of people’s court should establish a centralized administrative platform for the judicial review of arbitration awards, to strengthen the informatized management and data analysis of cases regarding applications to confirm the validity of an arbitation agreement, cases regarding applications to cancel or enforce arbitration awards of our domestic arbitration institutions, applications to recognize and enforce Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Macau Special Administrative Region, Taiwan Region arbitration awards, cases regarding applications to recognize and enforce foreign arbitral awards, and cases relating to the judicial review of arbitration such as refusal to accept, reject the filing, or objection to jurisdiction and others relating to the confirmation of the validity of an arbitration agreement; the effective guarantee of the correct application of law and of a unified yardstick for judicial decision-making. The #4 Civil Division of the Supreme People’s Court and the People’s Courts Information Technology Service Center shall be specifically responsible for this work.

IV. This paragraph requires a platform to be established to enable better data collection of arbitration related cases. Data collection appears to be an ongoing issue for the courts. 2015 SPC rules on case file numbers (thank you to Chinalawtranslate.com for this translation), are aimed to create more consistency in filing numbers for cases, and will also be helpful in this process. Inconsistency in case files numbers was identified as a problem in the Guangdong study.) The SPC’s #4 Civil Division (in charge of cross-border civil and commercial matters) and the Information Technology Service Center are the ones responsible for ensuring this platform works. The notice does not require data results to be made public. The legal and professional public (in China and elsewhere in the world) would look forward to regular big data reports on this.

最高人民法院

2017年5月22日

Supreme People’s Court

May 22, 2017

_______________________________________

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bankruptcy law, big data, Court Operations, Court Reform, death penalty

China’s draft court law

September 13, 2017 Supreme People's Court Monitor 2 Comments

Screen Shot 2017-09-10 at 8.40.56 PM — Screenshot of trial in the Haidian district court

A draft of the first comprehensive overhaul of China’s court law since 1979 (the organic/organizational law of the people’s courts) is now open for public comment (until 4 October). A translation of the draft is available at Chinalawtranslate.com (many thanks to those who made it possible). A translation of the current law is here and an explanation of the amendments has also been published. The draft is significantly longer than the earlier version of the law (66 vs. 40 articles). It retains much of the framework of the old law, incorporates legislative changes as well many of the judicial reforms, particularly since the Third and Fourth Plenums, and leaves some flexibility for future reforms. As with the current law, Communist Party regulations address (and add another layer to) some of the broad issues addressed in the draft law. Some comments:

Drafting process

The drafting process (the explanation has the details) reflects the drafting of much Chinese legislation (further insights about the process from Jamie Horsley here)–several years of soft consultation by the drafters of relevant Party and government authorities, plus one month of public consultations. Among the central Party authorities consulted were: Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Central Organizational Department (in charge of cadres); Central Staffing Commission (in charge of headcount); Central Political Legal Committee. On the government side: Supreme People’s Court and Procuratorate; State Council Legislative Affairs Office; Ministry of Finance, National People’s Congress Legal Work Committee. Investigations and consultations were also done at a local level.