Category Archives: Communist Party and the Courts

Communist Party and the Courts, Structure of the Court

Controlling Judicial Headcount in the New Era

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Screenshot 2020-03-19 at 4.32.02 PMIn the middle of March 2020, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Party Group convened a meeting (pictured above) to discuss the topic of “strengthen the awareness of the system, maintain the authority of the system, make stricter the management of the system, build a tougher court team, and work hard to build a model organization on which the Party Center can rely and that satisfies the masses (强化制度意识，维护制度权威，严格制度管理，打造过硬法院队伍，努力建设让党中央放心、让人民群众满意的模范机关).  Part of this phrase appeared in several of my blogposts in the past year (not surprisingly), and also can be seen across used by other Party and state institutions in 2019 (not surprisingly).  Although the discussion at the meeting centered around two topics–judicial headcount (bianzhi 编制) and selecting leaders (领导干部选拔任用, nomenklatura)–this short blogpost will focus on judicial headcount (bianzhi).

Chinese law, unlike legislation in many countries (see German legislation, for example), does not state clearly how many judges are on its highest court. It is also unclear how many persons work in the operational divisions of the SPC (the ones that decide cases) vs. the administrative (general, 综合部门) of the SPC.  As I wrote in an earlier blogpost, it is unclear how many judges in the SPC have been “borrowed” from the lower courts.  And as I wrote earlier about the SPC judicial committee, it appears that likely that the Central Staffing Commission regulates the number of persons who can be SPC vice presidents. I surmised that Justices Hu Yunteng, Liu Guixiang, Pei Xianding, and He Xiaorong were given the title of  “专委“ (full-time members of the judicial committee) to give them a bureaucratic rank equivalent to being an SPC vice president, with attendant privileges. The bianzhi system supplies the reason.

The bianzhi system provides insights into the thinking of the Chinese political leadership about how it views legal institutions, including the courts. It appears to treat the SPC as just another Party/state institution whose functions, internal institutions, and personnel the Party must set (the jargon in Chinese is the “three sets”(“三定”)（职能配置、内设机构和人员编制). It also shows the bureaucratic nature (官本位) of the SPC.  The bianzhi system illustrates that the SPC has a different role in the Chinese political system from the supreme courts of other major jurisdictions. This discussion and other ongoing discussions within the SPC on its “three sets” plan illustrates how the Party is reshaping legal institutions in the New Era. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) has already been reshaped. This is part of the post-18th Party Congress (and 19th Party Congress) reshaping of Party and state institutions, to ensure the correct implementation of Party leadership.

The bianzhi system

The bianzhi system is a system for creating and eliminating Party/government/state-owned enterprise/institutional posts by identifying the necessary functions the system needs to fulfill. Those in the SPC are part of the government (政务) civil service/Party/government) system.  The bianzhi system is administered by the Central Staffing Commission. The Central Staffing Commission has an office (常设办事机构) that administers staffing matters, and it, in turn, is administered by the Party’s Organization Department.  Those whose posts are within the bianzhi system have civil service benefits and are said to “eat imperial grain.” (More scholarship on the bianzhi system can be found here and here). I should mention, however, that since 1982 the bianzhi system has given those in the political-legal institutions special status and special (专项) bianzhi. In 2015, the Central Staffing Commission issued a document on reforming the treatment of political-legal staff, including judges, which I mentioned in my 2019 article on transparency.

As to why the SPC Party Group discussed bianzhi in March, 2020, it is linked to new regulations on bianzhi work issued by the political leadership in August, 2019 (中国共产党机构编制工作条例) and apparently ongoing work on reshaping the internal institutions of the SPC, linked to those new regulations. (For those interested in cross-straits comparisons, please see analogous legislation from Taiwan.

In 2018, the SPC and the Central Staffing Commission issued regulations on the bianzhi of the lower courts, and some of the same principles in those regulations can be expected to applied when the SPC draws up its own “three-set” plan.  Those regulations were intended to control the number of internal institutions within a court, allocate more personnel to operational divisions, and standardize the functions and titles of internal institutions across provinces and nationally.  From my informal discussions with leaders in some busy local courts, they say that relying on bianzhi staff does not give them enough personnel to run their court, and contract staff are needed.

The principles for bianzhi work, as highlighted in the 2019 regulations are: 1) Upholding Party leadership over bianzhi work, the Party shall exercise centralized and unified leadership over bianzhi work, upholding and protecting General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core…( 坚持党管机构编制。坚持党对机构编制工作的集中统一领导，坚决维护习近平总书记党中央的核心); high quality in coordination with efficiency; the binding nature (like steel) of bianzhi (坚持机构编制刚性约束); and bianzhi must be slim and healthy.

The press report only vaguely hints on what the reshaping of the SPC will look like. President Zhou Qiang mentions a “trial centered” internal institutional model and personnel model, strengthening internal responsibility and operational matters, to ensure that the people’s courts can fulfill the demands of their responsibilities according to law.  Whether this means that more headcount will be allocated to the operational divisions of the SPC rather than the General Office and other administrative offices is unclear.  Whether it means that some of the smaller divisions of the SPC will shrink further is unclear. And whether it means that fewer people will be “borrowed,” I have my grave doubts.

Another unknown is whether the SPC’s “three sets” plan will be made available to the general public.  My guess is no (some approved plans are posted on the Central Staffing Commission’s website), but we are likely to see President Zhou Qiang issue a press release or discuss it at a news conference, as Chief Procurator Zhang Jun did last year, but not for some time.

A fundamental question not raised by the reports, but perhaps was in the minds of the participants in the meeting, is whether the bianzhi system, implementing the above principles, is consistent with some of the  SPC’s policy goals. One that comes to mind is being able to accommodate changes in where personnel is needed–a policy of rigidly enforcing bianzhi restrictions would be unhelpful.  After all, SPC leaders need to be “problem-oriented” (坚持问题导向), that is address relevant practical issues facing the court system as well as being politically correct, so that may mean that headcount needs to shift among divisions from time to time.

 

Communist Party and the Courts, Expert Committee, foreign investment law, foreign-related cases, international commercial court

Supreme People’s Court updates its Belt & Road policies

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Screen Shot 2019-12-29 at 9.15.50 PMAt a press conference on 27 December (2019) the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC) #4 Civil Division (the division focusing on cross-border commercial issues) announced it had issued three documents: a judicial interpretation and two judicial policy documents. The documents are connected directly or indirectly to the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) and improving China’s foreign investment environment.

  1. Interpretation on Several Issues Regarding the Application of the “People’s Republic of China Foreign Investment Law” (FIL Interpretation) (最高人民法院关于适用〈中华人民共和国外商投资法〉若干问题的解释);
  2. Opinion on providing services and guarantees for the Belt & Road (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); and
  3. Opinion on providing services and guarantees for Construction of the Lingang area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone (Lingang FTZ Opinion) (关于人民法院为中国（上海）自由贸易试验区临港新片区建设提供司法服务和保障的意见).

The two Opinions update two of the SPC’s two major policy documents on cross-border issues: the 2015 Opinion on Providing Services and Guarantees for the Belt & Road (BRI Opinion, and Opinion on Providing Guarantees for the Building of Pilot Free Trade Zones (FTZ Opinion). Policy documents do not have the force of law. They are examples of how the SPC supports the Party and government by issuing documents to support important strategies or initiatives (serving the greater situation (服务大局). In the New Era, the SPC has issued over dozen policy documents that provide “judicial services and guarantees” for major government strategies or initiatives, many more than before.  These Opinions are intended to harmonize the two earlier policy documents with post 19th Party Congress developments and priorities, including those mentioned in the Fourth Plenum Decision. I had previously reviewed the two earlier documents in detail.  My analysis of the Pilot FTZ Opinion can be found here and I have previously written and spoken about the BRI Opinion.  This blogpost draws on correspondence I had recently with Professor Vivienne Bathof the University of Sydney, but I am solely responsible for the views expressed here.  This blogpost discusses BRI Opinion #2.

2.  Belt & Road Opinion #2

This document is longer than the other two put together and has much more substantive and political content. Comments on the first section will focus on the political issues, while comments on the rest of the document will discuss the other content in the document:

  • political signaling on discrete issues;
  • judicial policy changes;
  • signaling to various audiences;
  • instructions and guidance to the lower courts;
  • highlighting future possible changes to SPC positions on legal issues;
  • promoting or supporting certain government initiatives within the courts;
  • reiterating basic policies.

New requirements and tasks (Section 1)

In keeping with post 19th Party Congress trends and the spirit of the 2019 Political-Legal  Work conference, BRI Opinion #2 has more politically oriented content and references than the 2015 BRI Opinion. As it must be harmonized with the latest Party and government policy, it includes the latest judicial policy jargon, such as “improving the business environment” and “creating an international, law-based and convenient business environment with stability, fairness, transparency, and predictability.”

The first section includes a long paragraph on working principles. For the casual reader, the principles are an odd hotpot of political, substantive, procedural, and administrative matters but in keeping with its role in the document. It is all about political signaling. To the person unfamiliar with these documents, it gives the reader the impression that if she put her chopsticks in one place in the hotpot, she would pull up support for international arbitration and if in another, support for constructing litigation service centers.

Policy changes and signaling (section 2)

This section contains seven apparently unconnected provisions. They are linked by their political and practical importance: judicial cooperation in criminal law; protecting the right of domestic and cross-border parties; supporting multilateralism; supporting the development of international logistics; supporting opening up in the financial sector; supporting the development of information technology, intellectual property, and green development. This section is a combination of signaling to the political authorities and the lower courts.

One notable provision is on judicial cooperation in the area of criminal law. Article 4 mentions the Beijing Initiative for the Clean Silk Road, and zero tolerance for corruption.  Doing something about cross-border corruption offenses is not a matter primarily of the SPC, as this analysis notes and has greater implications for state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This provision calls for the people’s courts to work with the judicial organs of other countries and regions along the “Belt and Road” to build jointly a judicial anti-terrorism mechanism, and curb the spreading of terrorism.  The link to the SPC is that we can anticipate that some staff from the SPC would be involved in negotiating regional or bilateral arrangements relevant to anti-terrorism (along with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Public Security Ministry). In an indirect way, it illustrates how the SPC works with other Party and government departments on legal issues, one of the distinctive functions of the SPC that rarely receives much attention.

On signaling to the lower courts, in addition to the section on financial cases, discussed in the previous blogpost, Article 6 is a reminder to the lower courts to apply the relevant rules of determining contract validity and liabilities in civil and commercial cases involving free trade agreements or cooperation documents signed between China and other countries. In any case, it is their obligation in applying relevant law.  Perhaps the SPC has issued the reminder because lower courts have failed to do too often.

Although Article 11 (on environmental protection) has received attention from a prominent environmental lawyer who saw the inclusion of cross-border environmental public interest litigation in the Opinion as ground-breaking, knowledgeable persons suggested it is a merely a reminder to local courts that they can take such cases provided current legal requirements are met, such as jurisdiction over the defendant, location of the pollution, and the social organization meeting specified requirements.

Specific policy (Section 3)

Section 3 contains signals on changes to specific judicial policies, reminders to the lower courts and also political signals, including highlighting SPC accomplishments. Article 13 signals to the lower courts some new policy on contract interpretation. It addresses situations that commonly arise when one party alleges fraud or collusion to avoid contract liability. The SPC reminds lower courts that evidence should be reviewed carefully, and the evidentiary standard should be beyond a reasonable doubt（根据排除合理怀疑的证据规则严格认定欺诈、恶意串通).  Article 13 directs courts to apply foreign law if the choice of foreign law would uphold contract validity.

This section has quite a few reminders to the lower courts to do what they should already be doing, such as: actively applying international conventions applicable to China; respecting international practices and international commercial rules; fully respecting parties’ governing law choice and explaining how they determined it; taking a restrictive approach towards declaring contracts invalid. Governing law is a sore spot in certain maritime matters, where the Chinese courts in a number of cases have set aside parties’ choice of law for a failure to have an actual connection.

Extending the influence of Chinese law abroad is a policy that received new impetus in the November, 2019 Decision of the 4th Plenum of the 19th Party Central Committee, and therefore it is found in Article 20 and again in Article 21 (in the following section).  Linked to this is language on increasing the prestige of the Chinese courts and the China International Commercial Court in particular. The language echoes and extends the 4th Plenum of the 18th Party Central Committee and BRI #1 Opinion, by calling on the people’s courts to extend the influence of Chinese law, publish typical cases tried by Chinese courts in multiple languages, lay a solid foundation for courts and arbitration institutions to correctly understand and apply Chinese laws, and strengthen the understanding and trust of international businesses of Chinese law. From the fact that the SPC envisions Chinese courts as having a role in assisting foreign courts and arbitration institutions to “correctly understand and apply Chinese law” shows that the SPC has a distinctive understanding of the role of a court.

On related accomplishments, one relates to typical cases in foreign languages and the other to the creation of the foreign law ascertainment platform. In 2019, the SPC published typical cases on cross-border issues in English, by publishing a pair of books on China Foreign-Related Commercial Cases and Maritime Cases (in China). It has also published a book of Chinese cases translated into English through Springer. On foreign law ascertainment, the accomplishment is the SPC having established a bilingual foreign law ascertainment platform, that assembles in one platform the available resources for ascertaining foreign law and a number of cases that involve ascertaining foreign law. There has been discussion in China as to whether courts should take such an active role in ascertaining foreign law, but the SPC has made a policy decision that it should.

International Commercial Court and One-Stop Dispute Resolution (Sections 4 and 5)

The BRI Opinion #2 contains several provisions related to the China International Commercial Court (CICC), with some mention of its expert committee.  Article 23 mentions working with international commercial courts outside of China to establish various types of exchanges and cooperation, including training judges. It is unclear whether this a reference to increasing cooperation under the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts or other future initiatives.

These two sections also signals to the lower courts policy changes and policies to be stressed. One policy to be noted is implementing the policy of mediating first (贯彻调解优先原则), which is already incorporated into the CICC rules.  Some of the difficulties in mediating cross-border disputes involving state-owned enterprises were discussed in this earlier blogpost and at the workshop on implementing the Singapore Mediation Convention that I attended in December (2019).

Some new developments underway are mentioned in this section, linking to the central government’s policy of supporting Hong Kong’s role as an international dispute resolution center. Article 34 calls for support for increased cooperation with the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre and other Hong Kong-based arbitration institutions, and appropriately involving Hong Kong-based institutions in CICC’s one-stop model. Article 35 mentions supporting offshore arbitration institutions being able to hear cases in China. (a development underway in recent months).

An important practical issue is raised in Article 31, which mentions improving the mechanism of coordinating cross-border bankruptcy (insolvency), and exploring (探索) applying the systems of the principal bankruptcy procedures and the center of the debtor’s main interests. This is likely linked to domestic development of bankruptcy law and the recognition that with BRI and thousands of Chinese companies investing abroad, some number will (or have) gone into bankruptcy (insolvency) proceedings. “Improving” and “exploring” mean that they are on the agenda of the SPC. It appears that the first related development occurred in Hong Kong in January 2020, when Judge Jonathan Harris granted recognition and assistance to mainland liquidators of CEFC (description of the case and link to judgment found here).  He concluded his judgment by stating” the extent to which greater assistance should be provided to Mainland administrators in the future will have to be decided on a case by case basis and the development of recognition is likely to be influenced by the extent to which the court is satisfied that the Mainland, like Hong Kong, promotes a unitary approach to transnational insolvencies.”

As I discussed in a recent blogpost and earlier, the SPC is seeking to use the CICC and its decisions (judgments/rulings) to guide the lower courts and to pilot reforms that are replicable (a Chinese judicial reform concept), as stated in Article 22 and 25: “the role of cases in determining rules and guiding behavior…and the role of the CICC in providing models and guidance shall be developed.  (发挥国际商事法庭示范引领作用…发挥好案例的规则确定 和行为指引作用).

Article 24 concerns presumptive reciprocity and mentions gradually promote reciprocity between commercial courts. This may signal that the judicial interpretation on enforcement of foreign court judgments is further delayed and that the SPC is taking a gradual approach by working towards mutual recognition and enforcement of international commercial court judgments, which would involve a smaller group of foreign judgments.

Themes that are not new in this section include supporting parties’ right to choose an appropriate dispute resolution forum.  It can be imagined that the #4 Civil Division judges considered that this basic principle needed repeating. Another ongoing theme, with more political coloration, is encouraging BRI dispute resolution, including investor-state dispute resolution to be heard in China. This is mentioned explicitly in Article 28, which lists measures “so that more international commercial disputes can be efficiently resolved in China.”  This is not new, but is part of a push that this blog noted as early as 2016, to move the locus of China-related dispute resolution from London and other centers in Europe (or elsewhere) to China, where Chinese parties will encounter a more familiar dispute resolution system.

Article 32 mentions investment dispute resolution, and supporting “relevant departments in improving international investment dispute resolution mechanisms and organizations, respecting the dispute resolution clauses in bilateral and multilateral investment agreements, and resolving international investment disputes in a fair and efficient manner.”  This appears to be an acknowledgment that the SPC is in discussions with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other institutions on dealing with difficult issues related to enforcing international investment dispute arbitration awards in China (discussed here).

Personnel & Institutional Matters

The concluding section includes a notice in Article 37 to the lower courts that they shall “strengthen and improve the mechanism of coordination and guidance, and step up communication and cooperation with the relevant entities and departments.” This is a theme seen in many of the opinions issued by the SPC and reflects one of the many functions of the Chinese courts.

As discussed in the preceding blogpost, references in Article 38 and 39 to exchanges and training send signals within the SPC and its institutions, as well as lower courts about the types of programs that may be promoted, permitted or explored. It is likely that the National Judges College, its provincial branches, and its partners will continue to train foreign judges, as has expanded greatly in recent years. It appears that there could be greater possibilities for Chinese judges to go on exchange with other countries than has been possible in recent years. From my own contacts and experience with It may also provide the basis for a local court or division of the SPC to apply for funding to hold a legal roundtable or host an international exchange.

Concluding remarks

This Opinion is typical of New Era SPC policy documents providing guarantees and support for specific Party and government strategies and initiatives.  For a reader from outside the Chinese government system (体制), it takes knowledge of a constellation of related policies and practices to decode. This blogpost has been able to identify some of them.

BRI Opinion #2 has a great deal of content, not all discussed in this blogpost. Some have practical importance for practitioners in China and elsewhere.  But a larger question to consider, that likely was not in minds of the drafters, is whether this type of policy-oriented document is useful in reassuring foreign governments, foreign state-owned companies, and commercial entities that their dispute is best heard in China?  From my discussions with practitioners in various parts of the world, they may not be aware that BRI Opinion #2 even exists.

 

 

 

 

Communist Party and the Courts, Expert Committee, foreign investment law, foreign-related cases, international commercial court

How are Supreme People’s Court Opinions structured?

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Screen Shot 2019-12-29 at 9.15.50 PM
27 December SPC Press conference：from left, Li Guangyu (spokesperson); Justice Luo Dongchuan (vice president); Judge Wang Shumei (head of #4 Civil Division); Gao Xiaoli (deputy head, #4 Civil Division)

When the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issues an “opinion” (意见), it is not issuing a judgment or ruling.  It is issuing a policy document, without the force of law.  In the New Era, the SPC has issued over dozen policy documents that provide “judicial services and guarantees” for major government strategies or initiatives, many more than before. They are examples of how the SPC supports the Party and government by issuing policy documents to support important strategies or initiatives (serving the greater situation (服务大局). What few, if any have written about is the structure of these opinions that support important strategies or initiatives as they relate to civil and commercial law issues. Understanding the structure is key to understanding the documents. Understanding opinions is important for understanding current issues in the courts and the future direction of judicial policy.

This blogpost uses the two opinions announced at the 27 December 2019 press conference pictured above, at which Justice Luo Dongchuan and Judges Wang Shumei and Gao Xiaoli (head and deputy head of the #4 Civil Division) introduced the two opinions (and a judicial interpretation). A subsequent blogpost will highlight what is new in these three documents. All three are connected directly or indirectly to the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) and improving China’s foreign investment environment. The two opinions are:

  1. Opinion on providing services and guarantees for the Belt & Road (2) (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); and
  2. Opinion on Providing Services and Guarantees for Construction of the Lingang area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone (Lingang FTZ Opinion) (关于人民法院为中国（上海）自由贸易试验区临港新片区建设提供司法服务和保障的意见).

The Opinions update two of the SPC’s two major recent policy documents on cross-border issues: the 2015 Opinion on Providing Services and Guarantees for the Belt & Road (BRI Opinion, and Opinion on Providing Guarantees for the Building of Pilot Free Trade Zones (FTZ Opinion).

The BRI Opinion #2 and Lingang FTZ Opinion are intended to harmonize the two earlier policy documents with post 19th Party Congress developments and priorities, including those mentioned in the  2019 19th Party Central Committee Fourth Plenum Decision. I had previously reviewed the BRI Opinion and FTZ Opinions in detail.  My analysis of the Pilot FTZ Opinion can be found here and I have previously written and spoken about the BRI Opinion.

Lower courts may issue documents that supplement the SPC’s policy documents, as is true with these Opinions.  This is a subject that I have written about on this blog and elsewhere before. The Shanghai Higher People’s Court has already issued a guidance document that provides related services and guarantees, with important content.

The two Opinions also link to three different events or matters–the promulgation of the Foreign Investment Law; the Second Belt & Road Forum for International Cooperation; and Xi Jinping’s visit to Shanghai and establishment of the Lingang Special Area of the Shanghai FTZ.

Structure of these Opinions

The structure of the two opinions is typical for SPC civil and commercial opinions “providing judicial services and guarantees” for major government strategies and initiatives.  Opinions often (but not always) start out with a first section with titles analogous to the section titles of these two Opinions:

I. Comprehensively grasping the new requirements and new tasks in serving the “Belt and Road” Initiative

I. Enhance understanding and get aligned with the mission of offering judicial services and guarantees to the New Area

A sample of the language of the first section is quoted below, from the second paragraph of the BRI Opinion #2:

Keeping committed to the concept of further providing judicial services and
guarantees by the people’s courts for the “Belt and Road” Initiative: The people’s courts shall firmly take the Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era as the guideline; study and fulfill the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress and the Second, Third, and Fourth Plenary Sessions of the 19th CPC Central Committee, as well as the essence of the key speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the Second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation; strengthen consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment…

The purpose of this initial section is two-fold. The first is to notify the lower courts of the political goals, background, and principles of the Opinion. The second to signal to the political-legal hierarchy that the policies that the SPC sets out in the body of the opinion are harmonized with the latest Party/government policies.

There are no hard and fast rules concerning the body of opinions, as analogous sections may occur in different order.  It may depend on the drafters and the topic involved.

The second section of the BRI Opinion has its counterpart in the third section of the Lingang FTZ Opinion:

II. Further performing the role of judicial trials, and serving and guaranteeing the joint construction of the “Belt and Road” with high quality in all aspects

III. Strengthen judicial trial function and maintain an institutional regime in the New Area focusing on investments/trade liberalization

These sections are meant to notify the lower courts about current relevant judicial policy, and implicitly inform them of any changes from previous policy and what the lower courts must do in support of that policy goal. The policies are likely to be linked to current Party/government policy.  From the BRI Opinion #2:

The people’s courts shall support the opening-up policy in the financial sector; the exemplary role (示范作用) of financial courts shall be maximized; eligible courts shall be encouraged to build special trial teams for financial cases; the application of law in foreign-related financial cases shall be further regulated and standardized;…valuable experiences of foreign countries in efficiently hearing financial cases shall be drawn upon…

Article 10, in Section III of the Lingang FTZ Opinion calls for

closer ties and communication mechanisms with the financial regulatory authorities shall be built to facilitate the construction of an integrated and efficient financial management system, in a bid for a better environment for doing business, for prevention of financial risks and for better national financial security.

In support of the opening-up policy in the financial sector, the SPC is promoting the role of financial courts (currently Shanghai, others to follow) in providing new mechanisms or methods in hearing cases or in their operations.  That is visible from the Shanghai Financial Court’s innovations in class actions in the sphere of securities law claims (claims against issuers, underwriters, directors and management, control parties, etc. for false and misleading disclosure upon initial issuance or in periodic reporting).  The Shenzhen intermediate court has established a special trial team for financial cases but not a separate court. From Article 10 of the Lingang FTZ Opinion, it can be anticipated that the Shanghai Financial Court has or will establish special communication channels with the financial regulators.

The titles of the third section of the BRI Opinion #2 is:

III . Further improving the application of law in cases involving the Belt and Road Initiative, and building a stronger rule-based business environment that is governed by law

From BRI Opinion #2:

13. The people’s courts shall vigorously carry forward the contract spirit and the good faith principle, and determine the acts of fraud and malicious collusion based on the rules of evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. If, in a civil or commercial case involving the construction, operation, purchasing, or bidding process of a project, there is a discrepancy on contract validity between the laws of the relevant countries, the people’s courts shall apply the law that holds the contract valid without damaging the honest party or benefiting the dishonest one, and promote mutual trust and benefits between the participants in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Each article in the third section of the BRI Opinion #2 focuses on a specific policy that the SPC wants the lower courts to promote.  In article 13, the SPC is seeking to control the tendency of lower courts to find a contract invalid because of allegations of fraud or malicious collusion, likely made by a Chinese litigant seeking to avoid contractual liability.  The Lingang FTZ Opinion does not have an exact counterpart to section III of the BRI Opinion #2, but has articles that focus on specific policies to be promoted, such as “properly handling cross-border bankruptcy cases….”

The title of the final section of BRI Opinion # 2 is:

VI. Further strengthening the organizational structure and team building to coordinate efforts to serve and guarantee the Belt and Road Initiative.

The last section relates to institutional and personnel matters. Take the following paragraph in the BRI Opinion #2 as an example:

39. The role of international exchange and research platforms such as international forums, legal roundtables..shall be further strengthened, and the exchanges and cooperation with the judicial systems of other countries shall be conducted. Training and studying programs for foreign judges shall be supported, and foreign legal service providers and think-tanks for the Initiative shall be invited to China to exchange views with Chinese counterparts so as to promote the formation of a diverse and interactive platform for legal exchanges….

Content in the last paragraph of the Lingang FTZ Opinion has some analogous provisions:

Establish a study training program and talent cultivation mechanism in line with international standards…Efforts shall be made to…(2) further expand international judicial communication channels, organize international judicial forums….

These provisions send signals within the SPC and its institutions, as well as lower courts about the types of programs that may be promoted, permitted or explored.  It is likely that the National Judges College, its provincial branches, and its partners will continue to train foreign judges, as has expanded greatly in recent years.  It appears that there could be greater possibilities for Chinese judges to go on exchange with other countries than has been possible in recent years.   It may also provide the basis for a local court or division of the SPC to apply for funding to hold a legal roundtable or host an international exchange. For the Lingang FTZ Opinion, it gives the Shanghai courts priority in organizing international programs and establishing programs to send outstanding young judges focusing on cross-border commercial issues on educational programs either in China or abroad.

The official report states that the SPC Party Group approved the two Opinions.  It appears from my previous research that pre-19th Party Congress, SPC policy documents did not necessarily require SPC Party Group approval. I surmise since the Party Political-Legal Work Regulations were promulgated in January 2019, it has now become a requirement, because Article 15 requires Party Groups/Committees to be responsible for setting major policies and directions.

______________________________

My thanks to a knowledgeable person for triggering my thinking about this and for insightful comments on an earlier draft.

Communist Party and the Courts, international commercial court, Structure of the Court

Central Inspection Group gives feedback to the Supreme People’s Court (2020 edition)

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Photo of CIG feedback meeting

In September, 2019, this blog reported that Central Inspection Group (CIG) #4 would inspect the work of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Party Group for approximately two months.  On 10 January 2020, Chinese media reported on CIG #4’s feedback to the SPC’s Party group. The summary and brief analysis below is based on the press release published in state media, rather than the full report given to the SPC.  Palpably better judicial transparency does not include Party documents of this nature. This process signals to the world outside of China that the SPC has a different role in the Chinese political system from the supreme courts of other major jurisdictions.

Chen Xi, Politburo Member, head of the Organization Department, and deputy head of the Leading Small Group on Central Inspections chaired the meeting. In the audience was: the head of the CIG #4 Group and its leader; members of the supervision office ( 监督检查室) of the CCDI/National Supervision Commission, leaders from relevant bureaus of the Party Organizational Department, leaders from the CCDI/Supervision Commission office stationed at the SPC, leaders of the SPC, and other responsible persons from the SPC. The results and the recommendations of what needs to be improved, as in 2017, were conveyed to the Standing Committee of the Politburo. The inspection group found that:

the study and implementation of Xi Jinping’s new era of socialist thinking with Chinese characteristics are not deep enough, the implementation of the Party’s line, direction, and policies and the Party’s central decision-making and deployment were not satisfactory.  There is insufficient focus on Party political construction;  the strengthening of political ideology and professional ethics of the cadre team (加强干部队伍思想政治和职业道德建设还不够到位) is not satisfactory; it insufficiently fulfills the duties and mission of the state’s highest judicial organ (履行国家最高审判机关职责使命还不够). The requirements of “justice for the people and fair justice” have not fully penetrated the entire court work process.   In every aspect, the trial management system and the supervision mechanism for the operation of judicial power are incomplete (各方面，审判管理体制和审判权力运行监督机制还不够健全完善). The strict implementation of the Party’s main responsibilities has not been put in place in a comprehensive manner, and minor problems are ignored; there are still problems with violations of the spirit of the Central Eight Point Regulations. There are still gaps in implementing the Party’s organizational policies for the New Era; leadership building and cadre construction are not in place. Party-building work of the institution and at the basic level is weak. Issues identified in the last inspection have not been corrected and corrective mechanisms are not in place.

In 2017, the CIG found: “four consciousnesses” need to be further strengthened; political discipline and political rules are not implemented strictly enough; the leadership role of the Party group is insufficiently developed;  there are some gaps in the coordination of the advancement of the system of judicial system reform; the implementation of responsibility system for ideological attitude (意识形态责任制落实不够有力); there are weak links in Party construction; organizational construction is not systematic enough; internal Party political life is not strict enough; relevance of ideological-political work is not strong; some Party leading cadres’ Party thinking is diluted (有的党员领导干部党的观念淡漠); the role of the basic level Party organization as a fighting fortress is insufficient; comprehensive strict governance of the Party is not strong, the implementation of the central eight-point regulations is not strict enough; formalism and bureaucratic issues still exist; tourism using public funds, abuse of allowances and subsidies still occurs; personnel selection is not standardized; cadre management is not strict enough; there are some areas of clean government risk.

This report revealed that some information involving leaders had been referred to the CCDI/National Supervision Commission, Party’s Organization Department, and other departments for further handling. The 2017 report contained similar language as well.

Chen Xi made demands of Zhou Qiang and other members of the SPC Party leadership. Among those is to implement the Party’s absolute leadership over the work of the courts, strengthen its “service and guarantees” to the work of the Party and state (see my 2019 article on one aspect), and implement judicial reforms. One of the demands he made with significant practical significance (flagged by a Wechat account popular among judges) is for measures for SPC judges (and likely lower court judges as well) that further restrict the employment of judges who have resigned and stricter conflict of interest rules for relatives of judges who are lawyers. [It is unclear whether these future measures will slow the resignation of SPC (or lower court) judges.]

He called upon the Party Group to raise their political position (提高政治站位) and arm their brains with Xi Jinping New Era Socialism with Chinese Characteristics thinking (用习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想武装头脑–a current slogan, for those not aware of recent developments).

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For the outside observer, handicapped by a limited ability to decode Party jargon, the summary of the feedback raises many questions but also provides insights.

Although the feedback appears to be devastating criticism of the SPC, a quick comparison to CIG feedback to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and the Ministry of Justice indicates that the language (at least in the press reports) is standard for CIG feedback to Party and state institutions. It thus provides insights into the thinking of the political leadership about how it views the law and legal institutions, including the courts.  It appears to treat the SPC as just another Party/state institution to be inspected.

Part of current Party policy seeks to bolster domestic and international confidence in the SPC and the lower courts.  At the same time, this press release describes the SPC as insufficiently fulfilling the duties and mission of the state’s highest judicial organ, and that some of its operations are inadequate.  No specific examples are provided. What are the qualifications of the CIG members to make this decision and what type of evaluation mechanism have they used?  What will be the impact of this feedback within the institution, within the Chinese legal community, and on the views of people in and outside of China towards the SPC?

The feedback also reveals continuing concern about Party building, political ideology, the Party thinking of senior SPC personnel, and implementation of Party policy.  It can be seen from my recent blogpost that SPC leaders seek to craft their policies, actions, initiatives, and other decisions to hit the target of being politically correct (post 19th Party Congress and post 4th Plenum) while being “problem-oriented” (坚持问题导向) that is, addressing relevant practical issues facing the court system.  The practical issues facing the court system are primarily civil disputes. We do not have overall statistics for the number of cases in the Chinese courts in 2019, but if the Shenzhen courts are any indication, the number of cases they accepted increased by 24%, with most of the cases being civil or commercial disputes. That means a substantial part of the work of the SPC must be directed towards creating a framework for dispute resolution in which domestic (and international) civil and commercial litigants can have greater trust.

 

Communist Party and the Courts, judicial interpretations

Challenges for Supreme People’s Court leaders in the new era

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Screenshot 2019-12-21 at 2.07.48 PMOne of the little-discussed aspects of being in a leadership role in the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) in the New Era 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” (坚持问题导向) that is, addressing relevant practical issues facing the court system.  This is true for President Zhou Qiang as well as the vice presidents (each of whom is responsible for several divisions (主管), according to bureaucratic principles), the division heads, deputy heads, and equivalents in the affiliated institutions of the SPC, whether they be the circuit courts, National Judges College, or the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence (CIAJ).

After the recent Central Economic Work Conference, Party Secretary and President Zhou Qiang convened a meeting of the SPC’s Party Committee, to discuss the implications for the courts, all of which appear to be the major initiatives of the SPC.  I have added numbers and deleted some provisions (translation thanks to Google translate). He said:

We must:

  1. deepen the comprehensive supporting reforms of the judicial system;
  2. vigorously promote the construction of smart courts;
  3. continuously improve the quality and efficiency of court work, and create a stable, fair, transparent, and predictable business environment for the rule of law.
  4. continue to strengthen judicial protection of intellectual property rights and intellectual property rights;
  5. improve the rule of law environment that supports the development of private economy, implement comprehensive, legal, and equal protection of property rights, protect the legitimate rights and interests of private enterprises and entrepreneurs in accordance with the law, and allow entrepreneurs to concentrate on starting a business..and operating with peace of mind.
  6. It is necessary to increase the judicial protection of intellectual property rights and provide strong judicial services and guarantees for the implementation of the innovation-driven development strategy. It is necessary to serve to ensure the healthy and rapid development of the digital economy, handle the relationship between the protection of digital rights and the development of the digital economy, protect personal information in accordance with the law, properly handle legal issues related to the digital economy platform, and better serve and guarantee the development of the digital economy.
  7. …Strengthen research on new situations and issues in the economic and financial field; do a good job in financial and bankruptcy trials; and effectively improve capacity of the people’s courts in risk prevention and resolution.
  8.  …It is necessary to serve a high level of opening up to the outside world, strengthen foreign-related commercial and maritime trials, protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese and foreign parties on an equal basis in accordance with the law, and provide powerful judicial services and guarantees for a wider, wider, and deeper opening.
  9. It is necessary to severely punish crimes in accordance with the law, actively participate in the special struggle to combat crime and eliminate evil, resolutely safeguard national security and social stability….

So what more specific measures hit the target? They include the following:

  • In November, Vice President Luo Dongchuan, when he made comments at the SPC Intellectual Property Court (Tribunal) on establishing a diversified technical fact investigation mechanism–see the language  in the Chinese version of the article (“raise political stance, fully recognize the importance of establishing and perfecting a technical fact investigation mechanism 罗东川强调，要提高政治站位，充分认识建立健全多元化技术事实查明机制的重要意义);
  • In December, Vice President Jiang Bixin, said such measures included improving environmental protection of the Yellow River Basin and high-quality development;
  • In December, head of the administrative division, Judge Huang Yongwei (mentioned on this blog when he was president of the National Judges College), said it included the judicial interpretation on administrative agreements, which he characterized as “having a positive effect on effectively protecting the legitimate rights and interests of the people in administrative agreements, advancing the government of the rule of law, building a credible government, optimizing the rule of law to do business, improving the ability of government administration, and advancing administrative trials in the people’s courts.”
  • For Yang Yongqing, deputy head of the #2 Civil Division, and one of the drafters of the recently promulgated 9th Civil and Commercial Trial Work Conference Summary (draft discussed here, the Conference Summary to be discussed in a future blogpost) (and Cao Shibin, head of the CIAJ, it meant going to one of the provincial courts to give lectures on civil and commercial issues.  Judge Yang explained what the conference summary means for trying cases involving a company that has provided security to a third party, as well as cases involving applications for relief by third parties.  Cao spoke on “Ethics and Judgment -Application of Judicial Reasoning in Civil and Commercial Trial Work”, starting from the challenges and difficulties facing the profession of judges.
  • Jiang Huiling, vice president of the National Judges College (NJC), in charge since Judge Hu Yunteng has retired: in November he addressed what implementing the 4th Plenum decision means for the NJC: “continuously promoting the modernization of education and training systems and education and training capabilities. The NJC should effectively translate its efforts into practical actions to promote development, gather the wisdom of all faculty and staff, study and judge the situation, … study in-depth the implications of constructing an “international first-class judicial institution (建设‘国际一流司法学府’)” [the goal that President Zhou Qiang has set for the National Judges College in its new five-year plan).”

This critic will “stay out of the region of immediate practice” (quote of Matthew Arnold, see a screenshot of a caricature that was one of my (late) father’s favorites).

 

Screenshot 2019-12-21 at 4.00.11 PM

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Operations, Court Reform, judicial committees, judicial transparency

SPC Updates its Guidance on Judicial (Adjudication) Committees

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2016 meeting of SPC judicial committee, to which NPC, CPCC representatives, and certain experts were invited

On 22 September the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) updated its guidance to the lower courts on judicial committees (关于健全完善人民法院审判委员会工作机制的意见). (also translated as “adjudication committees”) (审判委员会). For those new to this blog, these committees are made up of certain senior members of a court, and they have special decision-making authority, as detailed below. They decide cases that are too difficult or important for an individual judge or judicial panel to decide, to ensure the optimal substantive result (as seen from the institutional perspective of the courts).

The document is a policy document (explained here), as indicated by its document number 法发〔2019〕20号). Lower courts (and the specialized courts) can issue further detailed guidance, have in the past and will do so.  In 2010 the SPC issued guidance on judicial committees (2010 guidance), which I analyzed in this article, Reforming-judicial-committees.  The article includes some insights from a number of judges with whom I spoke at the time.  Reforming judicial committees has been on the SPC’s agenda since the prior round of judicial reforms, as my 2014 blogpost discusses. I predicted that reform would occur “in the medium term.”  There are is a great deal of writing about judicial committees in English and especially in Chinese.  My 2014 blogpost links to some of the English language research, and other insights about how judicial committees work can be found in Embedded Courts, the prize-winning book by NG Kwai Hang and He Xin.

The broad consensus on judicial committee reform can be seen in Articles 36-39 of the Organic Law of the People’s Courts, as amended in 2018 (2018 People’s Courts Law), but the 2019 guidance sets out more detailed rules.

This blogpost will highlight some of the issues that come to mind in a quick review.

A quick list of what is new follows:

  • There are some changes in the format of SPC Opinions (意见) so that it is usual for them to begin with a list of basic principles.
  • As to be expected, Party leadership and related principles are listed at the top of both the 2019 and 2010 guidance.  Both stress upholding Party leadership of the work of the people’s courts, with the 2019 guidance referring to “upholding the Party’s absolute leadership over the work of the people’s courts.”  This should not at all be surprising, as the phrase has been used repeatedly since the 2019 Political-Legal Work Conference. The Party Regulations on Political-Legal Work use the phrase “Party’s absolute leadership.” As I mentioned earlier this year, Li Ling (of the University of Vienna) sees this as indicating a complete and unambivalent severance from the judicial independence framework.
  • On membership of judicial committees, The 2018 People’s Courts Law and the new guidance retain the old system of having the court president and vice-presidents, but no longer requires division heads (庭长) to be members, but refers to “experienced”(资深) judges and to the possibility of having full-time members.  The  SPC already does this.  Justices Hu Yunteng, Liu Guixiang, Pei Xianding, and He Xiaorong are full-time members of the judicial committee, which gives them a bureaucratic rank equivalent to being an SPC vice president, with attendant privileges. It is likely that the Central Staffing Commission regulates the number of persons who can be SPC vice presidents.  Judging by the SPC website, some SPC judicial committee members are not SPC Party Group members, although of course there is some overlap.
  • Another innovation in the 2018 People’s Courts Law, repeated in the 2019 guidance, is having specialized judicial committees, to focus on more specialized issues, and to deal with the problem of having non-specialist judges making decisions on issues regarding which they are not familiar.  This provision consolidates ongoing practice in both the SPC and lower courts  My understanding is that the Shenzhen Intermediate Court was one of the earlier courts to establish specialist judicial committees.  The roots of this innovation lie in the 2004-2008 Second Judicial Reform Five Year Plan Outline. (This also illustrates the time it takes for some judicial reforms to be adopted.)
  • On the functions of judicial committees, new language mentions “sensitive, major, and difficult cases such as those involving national security, diplomacy, or social stability.”  That language is new as compared to the 2010 guidance.  It is not new to the SPC, as it appears in the SPC’s 2017 judicial responsibility regulations, about which I wrote.  I surmise that this is just spelling out what had been the general practice.   Most of the other functions are consistent with previous guidance.
  • The operational language is more detailed than before and gives a glimpse into the bureaucratic nature of the Chinese court system ( a collegial panel or single judge who thinks a case should go to the judicial committee  “submit an application and report it up to the court president for approval level by level; and where an application is not submitted, but the court president finds it necessary, they may request that the adjudication committee deliberate and make a decision. The language enabling a court president to designate a case for judicial committee discussion likely represents a consolidation of practice, rather than something new.
  • Other procedures in the operational section are new, reflecting the new institution of the professional judges committee and much more specific requirements concerning the content of the report that the judges are required to prepare for the judicial committee, including arguments by both/all parties, prosecution/defense counsel and a clear listing of the issues on the application of law that require discussion and decision by the adjudication committee, the opinions of the professional (presiding) judges meeting. In a clear signal about how the SPC sees the importance of case research, it also requires judges preparing these reports to search for similar or related cases.
  • The 2019 guidance requires judicial committee members with a conflict to recuse themselves  (the language is unclear about whether a party can apply to do that).  This is new, and reflects many years of criticism of the failure to have a recusal mechanism.
  • The 2019 guidance also imposes a quorum requirement on judicial committee meetings, both the plenary and specialized committee meetings. Certain outsiders (people’s congress delegates, scholars, etc) may attend, as well as the chief procurator at the same level or his delegate (this latter provision is not new).
  • Decisions are made by at least half of the members attending and dissenting opinions must be recorded in the case file. It does not mention that dissenting opinions will be mentioned in the judgment issued to the parties and the public. As before, the decision of the judicial committee is binding on the judge or judges who heard the case (principle of democratic centralism).
  •  The 2018 People’s Court Law and new guidance require the decision and reasoning in cases discussed by the adjudication committee to be disclosed in the judgment documents unless the law provides otherwise, so a significant step forward in judicial committee transparency.  The lack of judicial committee transparency had been criticized for many years.
  • Judicial committees at all levels of the courts are now required to create an audio or visual recording of the entire process of judicial committee meetings and keep them confidential. Judicial committee proceedings are required to be incorporated in a court’s caseflow management system. It is not clear from the guidance who or which entity would have access.
  • Those not involved in judicial committee proceedings (outside leaders, senior judges not involved) are forbidden from involving themselves in judicial committee proceedings.  If this didn’t happen in practice, it wouldn’t have been included in this guidance.
  • Similarly, the language in the 2019 rules on judicial committee members and other maintaining confidentiality and work discipline, and not leaking trial work secrets (I discuss this in my article published earlier this year.  If this didn’t happen in practice, it wouldn’t have been included in this guidance.

Although for many years proposals have been made to abolish the judicial committee, I have rarely heard anyone who has worked in the Chinese judicial system agree with that proposal.  It seems more likely that the SPC thinking is maintaining the judicial committee system is appropriate for China at this time, given the level of professionalism nationwide, the need to share/avoid responsibility for making difficult decisions, and the greater political environment.  This guidance appears to be designed to deal with some of the abuses of the judicial committee system, have greater (but not complete) transparency, incorporate new court institutions, and generally improve how the committees operate.

 

circuit courts, Communist Party and the Courts

Central Inspection Group inspecting the Supreme People’s Court (again)

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Screenshot 2019-09-11 at 8.45.00 AM
Mobilization meeting for the Central Inspection Group’s inspection of the SPC

This week the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC’s ) media outlets are carrying this 10 September report of the Central Inspection Group (CIG) #4’s mobilization meeting to inspect the SPC’s Communist Party group.  The same group is also inspecting the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP). Senior leaders (that with a bureaucratic rank of deputy bureau chief and above 副局级以上干部) of the SPC and its institutions attended in person (as well as related personnel). Those in the SPC’s six circuit courts  (巡回法庭) attended by videolink.  Zhao Fengtong is heading  (this English biography is outdated) the inspection group. He gave a speech at the mobilization meeting. President Zhou Qiang, who chaired the meeting, spoke as well. A search of Caixin’s website reveals that Zhao Fengtong has headed many such inspection groups. News of the inspection was announced on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) website last week and other media outlets. The inspection is part of the current round of CIG inspections, which total 37 Party, government, and other entities.  A CIG group last inspected the SPC almost three years ago. The previous mobilization meeting and inspector results were previously mentioned on this blog.

The China Law Society (a mass (government-organized non-government organization)) and the Ministry of Justice are being inspected in this round of inspections. Each has held its own mobilization meeting.

The inspection appears to be one example of the strengthening of Party leadership in the SPC. The inspection appears to be linked to language in earlier documents to strengthen the leadership of the Communist Party (加强党的领导) and to strengthen Party political construction (党的政治建设).  The Party Center issued a document on political construction earlier this year.

The remarks that Zhao Fengtong made are consistent with the document on political construction. Some of the points that Zhao Fengtong and Zhou Qiang made are highlighted below (along with my brief comments in italics):

  • the SPC, as a central organ, assumes a major political responsibility and glorious historical mission (重大政治责任和历史使命).  This phrase is to be found in SPC policy documents supporting important government initiatives;
  • Inspections are political supervision and a comprehensive political examination of the implementation by the Party Group of a Central and national organ of its political responsibility and duties (巡视是政治监督，是对中央和国家机关党组织履行政治责任和职责使命情况的全面政治体检). The term “political inspection” appears to be used frequently since earlier this year–the report on the previous mobilization meeting did not use this term.
  • The focus is on inspecting how the SPC is implementing the Party line, direction and policies and the major decisions that the Party Center has announced (重点监督检查落实党的路线方针政策和党中央重大决策部署情况);
  • The inspection will search out political deviance (深入查找政治偏差).  This phrase is found in the document on political construction–“put efforts into discovering and correcting political deviation” (着力发现和纠正政治偏差).

President Zhou Qiang stated that the Party group fully supports the work of the inspection group, will correct the problems found, will not delay or blame.  He mentioned that the institution will combine support for the work of the inspection group with current work (要把配合做好巡视工作与抓好当前工作结合起来).  The SPC is a court, to whom the public looks for justice. Informal inquiries indicate that the SPC has an even larger civil and commercial caseload this year.  Although earlier this year it raised the minimum amount in dispute for cases that it will take, the current state of the economy means that the SPC is facing a large increase in civil/commercial disputes. Domestic cases have a six-month deadline for resolution, placing a great deal of pressure on judges to resolve them timely, either by encouraging settlement or issuing judgments (or rulings).  

As in the previous round, the CIG is inspecting the SPC for approximately two months. The inspection group has provided an email and telephone number for those wishing to provide further information.

Background on CIGs and how they operate can be found in a 2016 New York Times article (focusing on the Ministry of Public Security’s inspection) and this scholarly article by Professor Fu Hualing of the University of Hong Kong’s law faculty.

bankruptcy law, Communist Party and the Courts, Company Law, shadow lending, US federal courts

Signals from the Supreme People’s Court’s national civil/commercial trial work conference

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Justice Liu Guixiang in a photo from some years ago

During the first week of July,  the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) held its civil/commercial work conference (民商事工作会议), at which senior SPC and lower court leaders (and other leaders) gathered to hear about the latest SPC policies concerning civil and commercial cases.

As this blog has noted, most of the work of the Chinese courts involves civil and commercial disputes, not criminal cases. President Zhou Qiang gave an important speech which set the tone for the conference, but the one that the practitioners (judges and lawyers) are paying close attention is the keynote speech by Justice Liu Guixiang, full-time member of the SPC Judicial Committee and organizer of the conference. From the content of Justice Liu’s speech, it appears that the focus was domestic commercial cases.  For those who want to review the text in full, it is available here and here (the second version was published on the Wechat account Empire Lawyers (法客帝国)and includes an introduction and highlighting by the lawyer who has the account.) (The last conference was in December 2015.) This blogpost highlights some of the many issues his speech raises.

(For those not familiar with SPC work conferences, the description I provided 25 years ago remains accurate: “Another important way through which the [SPC] uses these meetings is to transmit central legal policy, unify court practices in accordance with such policy, and obtain an overview of current court practices and problems.”)

Justice Liu Guixiang is a senior member of the SPC and one of a relatively few senior judges who graduated from the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) (formerly affiliated with the predecessor to the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM)) and so is familiar with cross-border issues in particular (and was earlier head of the #4 Civil Division, in charge of cross-border issues). He is well known to the international community. Justice Liu has been given responsibility for the SPC’s campaign to basically resolve enforcement difficulties within two or three years (as the former head of the Enforcement Bureau).  Because problems in the Chinese economy means that many more business deals in China are ending up as disputes in the Chinese courts, the SPC needs to signal to the lower courts how important issues should be handled and to the senior political leadership that the courts are supporting the Party and its core.

Justice Liu conveyed messages on two types of issues to two parts of the audience for his speech.  The two parts of his audience were (are) the political leadership and tens of thousands of judges involved with civil and commercial issues, as well as others in the court system.   The two types of issues are political issues and legal issues, both on substantive law and procedural law.  People outside of China might be tempted to dwell on the political messages (as this analysis does, as time doesn’t permit better analysis of the legal issues), but the messages on legal issues are those ones that will have the greatest impact on the court system and on practitioners. The speech will be reviewed, discussed, and used as the basis for further work in the court system, and attentive lawyers and in-house counsel know that the content of the speech will affect their litigation strategy and business. I’ve spotted one synopsis on the takeaways from the conference from one of Beijing’s prestigious law firms and more are following.

Political issues

The first part of his speech addressed political issues, but that part also includes some highlighting of critical legal issues. He states that politics is the most important. Justice Liu repeats some of the “innovative” language from January’s Political-Legal Work Conference that I mentioned in a blogpost earlier this year (with which his speech is harmonized).  “As a political and legal organ, the people’s court is first and foremost a political organ. It must put political construction in the first place and clearly talk politics” )人民法院作为政法机关，首先是政治机关，必须把政治建设摆在首位，旗帜鲜明讲政治 )(I was tested on the phrase “talk politics/讲政治“ recently by some persons in the system with a sense of humor).

Principle #1 (of four)–“To uphold the absolute leadership of the Party. The leadership of the Party is the fundamental requirement of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it is the root and soul of the people’s court.”…However, “the erroneous thoughts of so-called “constitutionalism”, “separation of powers” and “judicial independence” of the West must be resolutely resisted. This is a major issue of political principle and we cannot be vaguely ambiguous.” One commentator noted that this principle is greater than any ordinary principle of law.

This language harkens back to that used by President Zhou Qiang in January 2017. Why this was included, when the audience would know these principles clearly?  Likely for senior political leadership to see that the courts are harmonized with the Center and to ensure that the Center knows that SPC leadership is doing everything to ensure court cadres (judges and other court officials) are as well.

Principle #2, serve the Party and the greater situation.

Justice Liu reminds his audience that “it is necessary to fully realize that there is no rule of law that does not have political positions or political views” (没有不具有政治立场、政治观点的法治). In civil and commercial trials, we must have a stable political stance, determine the political direction correctly, pay attention to the political effect, consider the political influence (impact), and be good at analyzing complicated issues from the perspective of politics, from the perspective of the fundamental interests of the people, and from the perspective of the overall economic and social development of the party and the country, integrate politics in civil and commercial trial work.” （在民商事审判中必须站稳政治立场，把准政治方向，注重政治效果，考虑政治影响，善于从政治角度从人民群众根本利益角度、从党和国家经济社会发展大局的角度分析处理错综复杂的民商事矛盾纠纷，把政治融入具体的民商事审判业务中.

Interestingly, he notes that the system of recording interference by senior court leaders and other Party/government leaders has not been effective, and this must be implemented as well as the judicial responsibility system (问题在于我们在审判实务中没有不折不扣地落实好，非法过问案件登记制度的功能没有得到有效发挥。必须采取有效措施把这项与司法责任制相配套的改革措施落到实处).  This appears to be a reflection of the concern of many judges that they will be held responsible for judicial decisions that they made because they were under pressure to do so from senior court officials or local officials.

American civil (and criminal) procedure law professors would be intrigued to know that “so-called long-arm jurisdiction” merited mention in Justice Liu’s speech (“Pay close attention to the United States’ all-around suppression in the fields of economy, politics, science and technology, etc. and the implementation of so-called ‘long-arm jurisdiction”‘to bring new challenges to our country’s judiciary;高度关注美国从经济、政治、科技等领域对我国进行全方位打压，实施所谓“长臂管辖”给我国司法带来的新挑战.

Justice Liu includes in this section several legal issues and highlights the way that Chinese judges should think when hearing cases:

When making judgments, we must fully consider the overall situation of economic and social development, political effects, and social effects.  When dealing with major and sensitive cases, we must pay attention [carefully listen] to the opinions of financial supervision departments, state-owned asset management departments, and social organizations such as  small and medium enterprise associations to accurately grasp the overall situation of social stability, social impact, and political impact. 我们在作出判断时，要充分考虑经济社会发展大局、政治效果、社会效果. 在处理重大敏感案件时，要注意听取金融监管部门、国有资产管理等部门以及中小企业协会等社会组织的意见，精确把握社会稳定大局、社会影响、政治影响。

Justice Liu called for more work on bankruptcy law, particularly strengthening coordination with government, resolving obstacles in bankruptcy liquidation and reorganization, and introduce judicial interpretations to deal with the legal issues. In order to prevent and resolve major risks, the people’s courts should issue judicial interpretations or judicial policies on issues such as bond defaults that directly affect financial security and social concerns, equity pledges of listed companies, and Internet lending.

He calls for deepening supply-side structural reform and promoting high-quality economic development; clearing out “zombie enterprises”; preventing financial risks, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of private enterprises, establishing a legalized business environment, and other civil and commercial matters, and mentions the “Fengqiao Experience,” but in relation to the 2018 SPC Joint Opinion with the China Securities Regulatory Commission on increasing diversified dispute resolution for securities disputes and a single dispute resolution platform linking litigation and other forms of dispute resolution.  He flags future work in using other forms of dispute resolution to resolve financial/securities disputes.

Legal issues

Substantive legal issues are the ones that have attracted the interest of judges and other legal professionals. Politics is also visible in the way that Judge Liu phrased his summary of the legal issues briefly noted below  (particularly his use of dialectical analysis, consistent with Party Center language). (This analysis will be expanded later as time permits). The issues that he is highlighting are the major ones, particularly regarding commercial issues.  He is providing the view of the SPC (likely drawing on the views of the #2 Civil Division, the division focusing on domestic commercial issues), and is signaling where Chinese courts are in disagreement and should conform.

As to why Chinese courts disagree or are unclear on these issues, and why this speech will unify courts’ approaches, it has to do with Chinese legislation and judicial interpretations. Judge Liu’s speech is a type of judicial policy document, in essence. As I mentioned in a recent blogpost, rules or policies included in SPC judicial policy documents may eventually be crystallized in SPC judicial interpretations and eventually codified in national law, but that process is slow and cannot meet the needs of the lower courts. The lower courts need to deal properly (politically and legally) with outstanding legal issues pending a more permanent stabilization of legal rules. This is true for judicial policy documents in all areas of the law, not only in commercial law.  Therefore Justice Liu used this conference to convey the SPC’s views:

  1.  He flags the issues where Chinese courts disagree: validity of external guarantees given by companies; the validity of a contract if a fake chop is used; scope of the security rights when a security contract and registrations are inconsistent; guarantee contracts linked to shareholding (让与担保）; how to adjust damages, how to implement the right to terminate a contract (如公司对外担保的效力问题、盖假章合同的效力问题、合同约定与登记簿记载不一致的担保物权的范围问题、让与担保问题，甚至连违约金如何调整、解除权行使的条件等一些常见问题);
  2. Methodology–in trying difficult and new civil and commercial issues, judges should search for “similar cases” and determine whether prior cases have derived related principles.  This links with my recent blogpost flagging the SPC’s development of its case law system (with Chinese characteristics). Justice Liu does not use the word “precedent.” He directs judges to consider whether principles in prior cases are applicable, if not, reasons should be given, and if an old principle is to be reversed, reasons should be given and these should be discussed by either the specialized judges committee or judicial committee. He stresses what I had mentioned previously, that principles are needed on what the scope of “similar cases” are.
  3. On disputes involving Value Adjustment Mechanisms (VAMs), judges should seek to coordinate the conflicts of interest between investors, companies and creditors. and implement the principle of capital maintenance and the principle of protecting the legitimate rights and interests of creditors, and to balance the interests of investors, shareholders, the company, and its creditors;
  4. He repeats SPC policy on an old FAQ (frequently asked question)–what if a contract violates a local policy, normative document, or ministerial rule–should a court invalidate the contract? The answer is no, the court needs to consider whether there is a violation of public order (公共秩序), which he says is mostly seen in violations of law or State Council administrative regulations;
  5.  How to protect all types of entities equally and provide special protection to groups such as minority shareholders and financial consumers;
  6. He gives practical guidance to for judges grappling with a theoretical legal issue–how to understand the status of the relevant law when the General Principles of Civil Law (2017) is inconsistent with earlier legislation such as the 1986 General Principles of Civil Law,  the 1999 Contract Law, the Company Law (last amended in 2018). The new law supersedes inconsistent prior law, but if provisions of the 2017 law are inconsistent with the special part of the Contract Law, the Contract Law prevails (on the theory that specialized provisions prevail)
  7. Issues related to the validity of contracts, including contracts that never went into force,
  8. Corporate guarantees to third parties–an issue regarding which there has been a great deal of litigation and court rulings have varied widely,  He sets down some rules;
  9. How to correctly understand a provision of the Company Law Judicial Interpretation #2, that gives creditors the right to seek the liquidation of a company in certain circumstances;
  10. Private lending (particularly interest-related issues);
  11.  Issues related to a debtor or guarantor using company shares to secure an obligation, and the related rights of the company and its creditors, voting rights and rights to dividends in the company., and whether the creditor has a priority right. Justice Liu notes the law is silent on the validity of such agreements but the SPC takes the view that these agreements are valid, as long as no mandatory provisions of law are violated;
  12. Remedies for a third party–raising objections in enforcement proceedings, requests for retrial, and applying to proceedings.
  13. How to deal with cases with both civil and criminal aspects–if civil and criminal case involves the same facts, it should be referred for criminal investigation first, and if there is some dispute, it can be coordinated by the local political-legal committee.  The major issue in practice is how to determine whether “the same facts are involved.”  Justice Liu points his audience to several factors. This is also an old issue in the Chinese courts, but has taken on new importance now that the Chinese government is using criminal prosecution to deal with abuses in the financial system that affect the interests of consumers and investors.

Not said in Justice Liu’s speech is whether the broad substantive content will be reissued in a form more useful to frontline judges (and other members of the legal community).  If practice is any guide, that is likely we will see a conference summary (会议纪要)–the SPC issued a conference summary based on the 2015 conference 11 months after the conference itself, on one set of issues.

 

 

Case law, Communist Party and the Courts, court reforms, judicial documents

China’s new judicial reforms on case law & other guidance

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Gazette of the Jiangsu Higher People’s Court

As mentioned in my earlier blogpost, the Supreme People’s Court issued the fifth judicial reform plan outline in February, of this year (2019), harmonized with the current focus on Party leadership. For people with the fortitude to decode Chinese official documents, some real content can be found in the document. One of those provisions is #26 and relates to the ongoing efforts of the SPC to implement greater uniformity and consistency in the way that the law is applied in the courts (the translation below is from Chinalawtranslate.com):

#26 Improve mechanisms for the uniform application of law. Strengthen and regulate work on judicial interpretations, complete mechanisms for researching, initiating, drafting, debating, reviewing, publishing, cleaning up, and canceling judicial interpretations, to improve centralized management and report review mechanisms. Improve the guiding cases system, complete mechanisms for reporting, selecting, publishing, assessing, and applying cases. Establish mechanisms for high people’s courts filing for the record trial guidance documents and reference cases. Complete mechanisms for connecting the work of case discussion by presiding judges and collegial panel deliberations, the compensation commission, and the judicial committee. Improve working mechanisms for mandatory searches and reporting of analogous cases and new types of case. (完善统一法律适用机制。 加强和规范司法解释工作，健全司法解释的调研、立项、起草、论证、审核、发布、清理和废止机制，完善归口管理和报备审查机制。完善指导性案例制度，健全案例报送、筛选、发布、评估和应用机制。建立高级人民法院审判指导文件和参考性案例的备案机制。健全主审法官会议与合议庭评议、赔偿委员会、审判委员会讨论案件的工作衔接机制。完善类案和新类型案件强制检索报告工作机制)

As for why the uniform application of law is an issue, the quick explanation is the drafting of Chinese legislation often leaves important issues unresolved and outsources to the SPC (and SPP for some issues) the hard job of drafting more detailed provisions. (see Chinalawtranslate.com for many examples and NPC_observer.com for insights about the legislative drafting process).  Comments about the role of case law are found below.

#26 mentions the following:

  • improving judicial interpretations;
  • improving the guiding case system;
  • establishing a system for higher people’s courts to record with the SPC their guiding-type documents and reference cases;
  • improving China’s case law system.

Judicial interpretations

The SPC regulations on judicial interpretation work date from 2007. Some later guidance on that topic was issued several years ago, but that guidance has not been made broadly available. So it appears that one signal that this provision is sending is that the 2007 regulations need to be updated. It appears likely that the SPC will harmonize the language in its rules with the 2015 Legislation Law. Other provisions are unclear. One guess (based on the SPC document on incorporating socialist core values into judicial interpretations) is that language about socialist core values will be incorporated into any amended rules on judicial interpretation work. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) revised its rules on judicial interpretation work earlier this year, and it is possible that the SPC will harmonize some of the language in its rules with those of the SPP.

Another guess is that those rules will codify existing practices on drafting, discussions, etc.. As my blogpost (and recently published article) on the SPC’s Pilot Free Trade Zone Opinion details, the drafting process for judicial interpretations (and similar types of guidance) operates on the basis of long-standing practices. (My forthcoming article stuck in the academic publishing process has many more details on the drafting process for criminal procedure law interpretations).

This provision appears to be aimed at the SPC’s Research Office, which takes the lead in managing the judicial interpretation process and deals with ongoing criticism that the SPC allows inconsistent judicial interpretations to be issued. It is unclear whether the improvements mentioned will involve more public consultation than previously.

Guiding cases

I will leave detailed comments on how the guiding case system will be improved to others, as research by others (see Jeremy Daum’s article) tends to show that guiding cases are rarely cited. I surmise that the intent of the provision is to speed up the selection and approval process for guiding cases, as well as the use rate.

Local High Court Guidance

This language codifies the long-standing practice of local high courts issuing guiding rules applicable within their jurisdictions. As discussed in my article on judicial transparency, published earlier this year, senior legal scholar Li Buyun raised questions about the validity of local court guidance in his letter to the Legislative Affairs Commission of the National People’s Congress last year (2018). Article 104 of the Legislation Law forbids adjudication and procuratorate organs other than the
Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate from making specific interpretations on the application of law. 2010 SPC guidance had normalized the long-term practice of higher people’s courts (and their equivalent in the specialized courts) in issuing documents, characterized as ‘”trial work documents” （审判业务文件) and issuing reference-type cases (参考性案例).

Evidence of the importance of the practice can be seen by the fact that leading law firms publish client alerts about important local court guidance. This provision calls for a filing for the record system (with the SPC) of higher court guidance and reference cases to be established. It is not clear whether this system (apparently intended to enable the SPC to monitor local guidance and reference cases better) will result in a system that provides greater transparency to these rules. I had noted varying transparency requirements for local court guidance in my article. The Gazette of the Jiangsu Higher People’s Court (pictured above) publishes its court guidance under the section “judicial documents” (司法文件). That Gazette also includes local reference cases, entitled reference cases (参考案例)。 Terminology for local reference cases is not consistent, with the Shanghai Higher People’s Court issuing cases with a referential nature (参考性案例).

Improving China’s Case Law System

I wrote about in greater length in this short academic article published in the Tsinghua China Law Review two years ago (and in this blogpost three years ago) on how non-guiding cases guide. This part of the #26 consolidates some of the provisions of previous judicial reform documents and signals that the SPC’s judicial reform office is focusing on how to provide better guidance to the lower courts on using non-guiding cases and other forms of guidance documents that are not judicial interpretations. One issue not specifically mentioned is the relative authority of guidance documents and judgments/rulings by courts. It is assumed that SPC decisions are more authoritative than lower court ones.

The first sentence addresses the use of other forms of case guidance and transforming this case guidance into written documents. The titles, authority, etc. of these guidance documents are likely to be settled over time. One type that I have observed is the specialized judges conference (专业法官会议)(mentioned in at least two 2017 SPC documents: Opinions on Putting a Judicial Responsibility System in Place and Improving Mechanisms for Trial Oversight and Management ;(Provisional) and the SPC’s Judicial Responsibility implementing opinion (最高人民法院司法责任制实施意见（试行）(Implementing Opinion), In these conferences, difficult issues are discussed and provided to the collegial panel involved, but the panel members are not bound by the views of the conferences. This academic study notes that it is a uniquely Chinese institution and has arisen because of judicial caution about deciding cases independently (可以说，专业法官会议是中国特色的法院内部向办案法官提供咨询意见的专门机构，是在走向审判独立的特殊过程中，对法官自由办案能力担心而产生的一种特殊组织), likely in the face of extensive and long term accountability for decisions.

Some portion of SPC specialized judges conference discussions has been consolidated in the form of documents, such as in the form of a conference/meeting summary (会议纪要).  The SPC’s #2 Civil Division (focusing on commercial issues) seems to be leading the way in publishing these meeting summaries–some of the summaries have been published in book form, also with updates published on the internet/Wechat–see this example.

The last sentence of #26 addresses the case law system. The increasing importance of non-guiding cases shows the strength of the case law system that the authorities rejected about 10 years ago. It is clear from Justice Hu Yunteng（currently president of the National Judicial College)’s recollections of the history of the case system with Chinese characteristics, that Judge Jiang Huiling, then his colleague at the China Institute for Applied Jurisprudence (and currently vice president of the National Judges College) had looked to jurisdictions outside of China to advocate that China establish a case law system (Justice Hu doesn’t specify whether Judge Jiang was looking to case law systems in civil or common law jurisdictions in the “West.”). Mark Jia (of Harvard Law School), in his 2016 article, cites Li Shichun of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to the effect that it was the NPC that opposed those seeking to establish a Chinese case law precedential system.
My understanding that the last sentence is intended requires judges handling a case to engage in similar case searches and to report on the results of those searches in certain circumstances (for example, to report on their search before the case is discussed in the specialized judges conference). My earlier blogpost discusses the 2018 document requiring prior case search.–the specific rules for prior case search are not yet in place. What should be searched is not entirely clear.  One knowledgeable person described prior case search as a tool for “catching valuable cases in the sea of cases.” My own understanding is that it will depend on the area of law.  It can be seen from the last blogpost the type of cases considered authoritive in criminal law, but the types of persuasive cases will differ in other areas of law. Prior case search is meant as a tool for the courts to apply the law more consistently (and consistent with the views of the SPC) (an ongoing goal of the SPC). It is also likely that new legal rules evolved in cases will eventually be crystalized in other forms of documentary guidance, be it local court guidance, an SPC policy document, or an SPC judicial interpretation.

On the topic of precedent, as I noted in my 2017 blogpost on the SPC’s implementing opinion on its judicial responsibility system, special approval within the SPC is required if a ruling in a case will be inconsistent with prior SPC rulings on the issue. It means that the SPC is seeking to improve the consistency of its judgments internally.

So it appears that we will be seeing further evolution over the next few years in the tools used by the Chinese courts to provide legal rules: judicial interpretations, guiding cases, local high court guidance and reference cases, other guiding documents, and prior cases, with many of these intended to strengthen the firm guiding hand of the SPC.

 

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Reform, Uncategorized

Signals in the 2019 Supreme People’s Court work report to the NPC

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Screenshot 2019-04-19 at 8.49.37 AMI have spent some time decoding Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang’s March 2019 report to the National People’s Congress (NPC). As I explain below, it provides signals into how the Chinese courts are changing and may change in the post 19th Party Congress New Era.

This report is both different from and similar to previous reports. The major difference is linked to the 2019 Central Political-Legal Work Conference (at which Xi Jinping set out in his speech (重要讲话) his view of the New Era for political-legal work（新时代政法各项工作) and the accompanying Party regulations on Political-Legal Work.  As I explain below, the report is linked to other recent Party regulations, such as the Regulations on Requesting Instructions and Reporting on Major Matters （中国共产党重大事项请示报告条例）and Regulations on the Work of Selecting and Appointing Party and Government Cadres (党政领导干部选拔任用工作条例). Although the Regulations on Party Groups were only recently issued (15 April), Zhou Qiang must have been aware of their content when drafting his report. It is also likely that he was aware of the Regulations on the Evaluation of the Work of Party and Government Leading Cadres (党政领导干部考核工作条例), issued on 21 April. As I have written before on this blog, the SPC Court President’s work report must be harmonized with the latest stance on political-legal issues.

What is different?

What is different is greater emphasis on political study and Party leadership, although these are themes that found in many previous SPC court president reports.  The emphasis in this year’s report on political study is on Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想) and Party leadership is on implementing the spirit of the 19th Party Congress  (党的十九大精神) and the January, 2019 Central Political-Legal Work Conference (全面贯…中央政法工作会议精神).

This emphasis shown by the first numbered section of the report.  It is entitled  “Deeply study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Uphold the Party’s Absolute Leadership [emphasis added] Over the Work of the People’s Courts (深入学习贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想坚持党对人民法院工作的绝对领导).”  The phrase “uphold the Party’s absolute leadership over the work of the people’s courts” has been used repeatedly since the 2019 Political-Legal Work Conference.  The Party Regulations on Political-Legal Work (mentioned above) use the phrase “Party’s absolute leadership.”  Li Ling (of the University of Vienna) sees this as indicating a complete and unambivalent severance from the judicial independence framework. The report identifies the primary political task for the courts to be studying Xi Jinping Thought and the 19th Party Congress decision (坚持把学习贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想和党的十九大精神作为首要政治任务), and it calls for related training for all  350,000 court personnel (深入开展大学习大研讨大培训，对全国法院35万名干警进行全员轮训).

This section also calls for the strict implementation of the [Party] system of reporting and seeking approval for major matters [also known as requests for instructions](严格落实重大事项请示报告制度)(the Party regulations on reporting and seeking approval for major matters（Chinese version here). Those regulations appear to be linked to the Political-Legal Work Conference but were not publicly issued until the end of February).  As mentioned in my recently published article, 1995 regulations on trial work secrets require requests for instructions and their responses in a case to be placed in the supplementary file. These supplementary files are classified as trial work secrets.  There has been significant criticism over many years of the system of requesting instructions/reporting and seeking approval (as I wrote 26 years ago!), and proposals even within the SPC for the system to be “proceduralized” or “judicialized.” Some  academics have called for abolishing it. For those who can read Chinese, I recommend Renmin University Professor Hou Meng’s 2011 article analyzing the system of seeking instructions. The second judicial reform plan (under the late SPC President Xiao Yang), called for reform to the system of reporting and seeking approval/request for instructions system. In a quick search I did of the SPC’s judgment database for the phrase “sought instructions from the higher court (请示上级法院), I found almost 350 that mentioned the phrase (although a certain proportion related to requesting the higher court to designate jurisdiction).

Another indication of the emphasis on Party leadership is found in the section of the report that relates to the courts’ tasks for 2019.  Section #5 of the court tasks refers to improving the quality of court personnel–“speed up the creation of a revolutionized, regularized, specialized, professionalized team, forge a high quality court team that the Party Center relies upon and the masses are satisfied with.”  As explained in an earlier blogpost, “revolutionized” signals absolute Party leadership  (五是加快推进队伍革命化、正规化、专业化、职业化建设，锻造党中央放心、人民群众满意的高素质法院队伍). This language is consistent with the 2019 Political-Legal Work Conference and President Zhou Qiang’s speech to implement the spirit of that Political-Legal Work Conference (note that similar language is found in Procurator-General  Zhang Jun’s report to the NPC).

As in previous years, most of Zhou Qiang’s report was devoted to the SPC’s and lower courts’ accomplishments in various substantive areas and providing selected statistics to support the narrative. Those statistics reveal that most of the cases heard in the Chinese courts are civil and commercial, not criminal.  My incomplete research on the caseload of the SPC comes to a similar conclusion.

What needs to be observed (for those of us focusing on Chinese court developments) is how these recent Party regulations will be integrated with court-related legislation–for example, how the Judges Law will be amended to reflect the latest political developments. [The Judges Law was promulgated on 23 April, a future blogpost will analyze its significance].

Other issues to be observed include the following questions.  What does increased emphasis on Party leadership and political study mean for the operation of the Chinese courts and the increasingly professional judges working within the Chinese court system? The 19th Party Congress report calls for strengthening and improving Party leadership over bodies of state power.   A late January 2019 Central Committee document on strengthening the Party’s political construction (中共中央关于加强党的政治建设的意见) states that the basic nature of various institutions, including the courts (called adjudication /trial organs 审判机关) ) is that they are political institutions (中央和地方各级人大机关、行政机关、政协机关、监察机关、审判机关、检察机关本质上都是政治机关). What does this designation mean for the operation of the courts?

One of the post 19th Party Congress changes that Zhou Qiang mentions is implementing the system of seeking instructions from the Party organization and superior Party organizations and strengthening the leadership role of the Party group in operational (substantive) work and Party construction  (加强对本单位业务工作和党的建设的领导). So what does this mean, for example, for the China International Commercial Court and the SPC’s Intellectual Property Court (and their elite judges), as well as the other SPC judges together dealing with almost 35,000 cases, retaining and attracting high quality legal professionals, particularly at the lower court level (this year’s report recognized that the resignation rate in some local courts is “severe”)? Most of the 28 million cases heard in the Chinese courts were heard at the local level.  What does this mean for confidence in the Chinese court system, be it on the part of the Chinese public, the Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan public, and the international public?  President Zhou Qiang’s report reveals that most of the cases in the Chinese courts involve civil and commercial disputes that for the most part arise between individuals or corporate entities (in 2018 9,017,000 first instance cases involved people’s livelihood, including 1,111,000 first instance employment, medical, pension, and consumer cases), and the courts heard 1,814,000 marriage and family cases. Will integrating socialist core values into judicial interpretations promote the rights of women, not to mention other groups whose rights have traditionally not been fully protected?

Screenshot 2019-04-22 at 10.48.42 AM
graphic from the SPC English language website

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Reform, judicial transparency, State secrets

Shining a light on Chinese judicial transparency

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photo-download
flashlight in the dark

I last wrote on judicial transparency in December (2018), giving a quick analysis of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s latest transparency policy. Two quick updates on this topic:

  1. The Fifth Judicial Reform Plan Outline (Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Judicial System with Comprehensive Integrated Reforms – Outline of the Fifth Five-Year Reform Program of the People’s Courts (2019-2023) lists as one of the overall goals improving judicial transparency:

further deepen judicial openness, constantly improve the openness of the trial process, openness of court proceedings, openness of judgment documents, openness of enforcement information–the four transparency platforms, comprehensively expand the breadth and depth of judicial openness, improve the form of judicial openness, smooth the parties and lawyers to obtain judicial information channels, build a more open, dynamic, transparent, convenient sunshine judicial system.

The transparency developments highlighted in the Fifth Judicial Reform Plan Outline will be guided by the policy document Supreme People’s Court’s Opinion Concerning the Further Deepening of Judicial Transparency  (Judicial Transparency Opinion 最高人民法院关于进一步深化司法公开的意见)) that I wrote about in December.

2.  The article I mentioned as being in the academic article production pipeline has finally emerged.  It can be found here. It is a chapter from the book Transparency Challenges Facing China and examines some recent developments in China’s judicial transparency. It suggests that although the scope of judicial transparency is inevitably shaped by the requirements to keep state and trial work secrets confidential, the Supreme People’s Court, within the boundaries of what is politically achievable, is taking concrete steps to expand the scope of judicial transparency.  The article focuses on information on judges and courts, statistics and big data, and judicial normative documents, digging into relevant court rules and highlighting Chinese language commentary.  The article shows that views on judicial transparency within the Chinese judiciary are not as monolithic as an outsider might have initially assumed.

 

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Reform, judges, judicial independence

What does China’s Judges Law draft mean?

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Screenshot 2019-01-25 at 11.47.56 AM
21 January China Law Society organized discussion of Judges Law draft (note disproportionately few women)

Although the redraft of China’s Judges Law has the potential to have an impact on many in the world outside of China, few people have taken an interest, judging by the pageviews of its translation on Chinalawtranslate.com (62). (I’m indebted to Jeremy Daum and others for translating it).  Judging by a search on Wechat, the same is true in China.  The workshop pictured above, organized by the China Law Society, appears to be one of the few in which views on the draft were aired.  There must have been strong views on the draft, but the report did not provide any details (and it is apparent no foreigners participated). The draft was released before the Communist Party (Party) Central Committee’s 2019 Political-Legal Work Conference and therefore does not reflect the most current political signals. The draft is open for public comments until 3 February and over 800 comments have been submitted as of 25 January.  An earlier draft was made available for public comment (as well as related institutions) for comment and the China Law Society organized comments on that draft as well. The current draft incorporates input from various sources.

The law, if enacted in its current form, will have short and long term implications for the Chinese judiciary.  As the Chinese judiciary seeks to be increasingly connected with the outside world, through its work in negotiating the (draft) Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments at the Hague Conference on Private International Law, the Arrangement on Reciprocal Recognition and Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters between mainland China and Hong Kong, as well as other more controversial involvement, the questions it raises for outside observers (and Chinese ones as well) is–what vision does it convey of the Chinese judge?  What rights and responsibilities does a Chinese judge have under this law? Will this law, if enacted in its current form, encourage competent people to remain in the judicial system and promising young people to enter it?  When I first flagged the redrafting of the law in 2015, I commented–“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.”

Some brief (not comprehensive) comments follow:

It consolidates the framework of the old law, incorporates legislative changes and many judicial reforms, leaves some flexibility for future reforms, and reflects current Communist Party (Party) policy towards political-legal institutions and their personnel as set forth in the 2019 Party regulations on political-legal work.

The Judges Law does not stand on its own. It is connected with other legislation, such as the recently amended Civil Servants Law  the amended court organizational law, and of course, relevant Party rules.   The initial drafting was led by the SPC, in particular, its Political Department (as the Party is in charge of cadres).

Chapter I: General Provisions

This section with broad statements is longer than the previous version.  Among the notable amendments.

Article 1, concerning the purpose of the law: “advance the regularization, specialization, and professionalization of judges; to strengthen the management of judges; to ensure that the people’s courts independently exercise the adjudication power; to ensure judges’ performance of their duties in accordance with law; to ensure judicial fairness; and to preserve the lawful rights and interests of judges”–sends signals concerning the professionalization of the Chinese judges, with principles of independence (better read as autonomy) and fairness not listed first. It should be noted that during the 2019 Political-Legal Work Conference, the “revolutionization” of political-legal teams was listed before regularization and professionalization (加快推进政法队伍革命化、正规化、专业化、职业化建设，忠诚履职尽责). (“Revolutionization” appears to meant to signal the absolute leadership of the Party.) SPC President Zhou Qiang gave a speech at a meeting to implement the spirit of that Political-Legal Work Conference which also listed “revolutionization” first, but he stressed the greater importance of professionalization (加快推进队伍革命化、正规化、专业化、职业化建设，把专业化建设摆到更加重要位置来抓) as the operation of and public confidence in the Chinese court system depends on retaining and attracting professionals. The establishment of the CICC, the Shanghai Financial Court and the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People’s Court all represent professionalization and specialization.

Article 2 mentions various types of judicial personnel, the functions some of which are defined in the court organizational law, but for others, such as division chiefs and deputy division chiefs, mentioned without definition.  A Chinese court has many administrative characteristics, but it would be helpful for the Chinese and offshore public to flag some basic principles regarding the functions of persons with these different titles, as these are found scattered in various SPC regulations.

Article 4: Judges shall treat parties and other litigation participants justly. The law is applied equally to any all individuals and organizations.  But the law treats different types of parties differently (embezzling money from a private enterprise vs. state-owned company) and other provisions of law treat cases involving senior officials differently from ordinary people (see this article on the principle of trying criminal cases involving high officials in a jurisdiction outside which the case arose).

Chapter II: Judges’ duties, obligations and rights

On Judicial duties, Articles 8 and 9, on the duties of ordinary judges and ones with a title do not clarify what participating in trials and being responsible for their cases mean (the latter is linked to the 2015 responsibility system that (as this blog has mentioned), gives judges a great deal of stress. Perhaps the German Judiciary Law could be a source of inspiration on judicial duties.

Chapter III: Requirements and Selection of Judges

This chapter incorporates a number of policy changes that have been implemented under the judicial reforms and also explains why the China International Commercial Court (CICC) will not be able to appoint foreign judges, unlike its counterparts in Singapore and Dubai.

Article 12 is a revised version of old Article 9, requiring judges to be PRC citizens, uphold the PRC constitution, and have a good political and professional character. Article 65 mentions that new judges must have passed the legal qualification examination.

This chapter mentions the establishment of Judicial Selection Committees (also a borrowing from abroad) and which must have some linkage to Party organizational departments. The chapter mentions recruiting judges from outstanding lawyers and academics (thus far, proving more difficult than anticipated), and requiring higher court judges to be recruited from those with experience in the lower courts.  I described the  “classic” appointment system in my 1993 article on the Supreme People’s Court, in which fresh graduates were assigned directly to the SPC.  As mentioned in my earlier blogpost on the court organizational law,  court presidents are required to have legal knowledge and experience.

Chapter IV: Appointment and Removal of Judges

This chapter has expanded conflict of interest rules for judges considerably. that had previously been set out in a separate chapter of the Judges Law.  Some of these had mostly been contained in subsidiary rules that the SPC has issued but are now being incorporated into the Judges Law itself.

Chapter V: Management of Judges

This chapter flags a number of issues, including the quota judge system, pre-career judicial training and the resignation of judges.

Article 24 states that a personnel ratio system is implemented for managing judges. This codifies the quota judge system, but it does not explain how it works and whether is any way to challenge the determination of the personnel ratio.

Article 30 provides that a uniform system of pre-career training is to be carried out for new judges.  This is an innovation in which the SPC has looked to what is done in Japan and Taiwan, and was flagged several years ago in this blog. As mentioned in that earlier blogpost, training is likely to include both ideological and professional aspects.

Article 34 provides that”judge’s applications to resign shall be submitted in writing by themselves, and after approval, they are to be removed from their post in accordance with the legally-prescribed procedures.”  It is unclear from this article what the procedure is for resignation and the standards for approving or rejecting a judge’s application.  But it is meant to harmonize with the Civil Servants Law，2017 regulations of the Party Organization Department and two other authorities on the resignation of civil servants, and SPC regulations implementing the latter regulations (discussed here).  From Wechat postings and other discussions in Chinese legal circles, it is not unusual for the senior management of a court to delay decisions on permitting a judge to leave for a year or more. 

Chapter VI: Evaluation, Reward and Punishment of Judges

This chapter sets out the outlines of the recent judicial reforms regarding the evaluation of and disciplining of judges.

Article 45 on punishment of judges–while many of the provisions are found in many other jurisdictions, some are unique to China and could be worrisome to judges, as they could be widely construed–such as “(5) Causing errors in rulings and serious consequences through gross negligence; (6) Delaying handling cases and putting off work.”  There is considerable concern among judges about the standard for “errors” in rulings because that standard may evolve over time (see this earlier blogpost) and the reason for delay may not be solely a legal one.

Articles 48-50–In contrast to the previous version of the Judges Law, this draft provides for disciplinary committees (rules to be drafted by the SPC) under which the judge will have the right to be represented and to provide evidence in his defense.

Chapter VII: Professional assurances

This section, on professional protections for judges, also flags the limitations on and weaknesses of those protections, with inadequate procedural protections against unfair determinations made against judges.

Article 52, providing that  “Judges may not be removed from the trial post except…”–also does not provide a mechanism for judges to challenge a decision or determination made against them.

Article 64: Where there are errors in judicial sanctions or personnel dispositions, they shall be promptly corrected; where it causes reputational harm, the reputation shall be restored, the impact eliminated, and formal apologies made; where economic harm is caused, compensation shall be made.  But there is no mention of how a judge can challenge the judicial sanctions or personnel disposition, or request that he (or more likely she) be reinstated.  Dispassionate analysis of the responsibility system by both academics and judges (previously mentioned on this blog) describes the responsibility system as a “Sword of Damocles” hanging over the heads of judges and lists some cases in which judges were prosecuted and found not guilty, with another one reported by another Wechat account.

A final word

It is unclear at this stage of the draft whether comments on the draft will have any impact on the final draft.  Presumably, some of the comments made at the workshop mentioned above will be accepted, as the participants included a group of senior experts either working within or retired from “the System” or academics whose expertise is recognized and valued.

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Reform, judicial transparency, State secrets

What does the Supreme People’s Court’s new judicial transparency policy mean?

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62bc75491cff95d15b4742e0c32268d9In late November (2018), the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) issued its latest transparency policy. The question is, after reading past the references to the 19th Party Congress and the ideology guiding this document, is what, if anything new does it require of the lower courts (and of itself)? And why? Decoding this document (Supreme People’s Court Opinion Concerning the Further Deepening of Judicial Transparency  (Judicial Transparency Opinion 最高人民法院关于进一步深化司法公开的意见)) requires some background.  The why is easier to answer (I have written about this in an academic article in the academic publication pipeline), but I will also explain the “what is new” and what it means.

Why?

As to the why, it appears to be linked to criticism from within the court system and by prestigious research institutes within China.  Some of the critics and their criticism:

In 2015, Justice Hu Yunteng wrote that judicial statistics needed to be made better and more transparent.  In 2016, He Fan, department head in the SPC’s judicial reform office, wrote “as long as it does not infringe the privacy of the parties, does not violate state security, the court’s data interface should be open to the community.” Local judges, too, are writing critically about judicial statistics, with at least one comparing unfavorably China’s practices with those of the US Department of Justice’s Bureau of Judicial Statistics.

IMG_4136  The team of researchers at the Institute of Law, China Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) evaluated court websites in this volume, advising the courts to “consider judicial openness from the viewpoint of public users,” and expand transparency of judicial statistics, devote manpower to updating court websites, and put some order into chaotic judicial transparency. On December 10, a team from the CASS Institute of Law announced the results of their third-party assessment of the SPC’s judicial transparency, the first time that the SPC had authorized an institution to do so, finding problems with compliance by some lower courts.

What does is the Judicial Transparency Opinion require?

The Judicial Transparency Opinion requires the courts to expand the scope of transparency while keeping secrets secret  It refers to two types of secrets, state secrets and trial secrets(审判秘密) (also called trial work secrets).

Expanding the scope of transparency while maintaining secrecy

The Judicial Transparency Opinion requires the lower courts to expanding the scope of information that they make public while keeping state and trial work secrets secret.  Although most people who a basic idea about Chinese law have heard about its broad definitions of state secrecy, that same cannot be said about the concept of “trial secrets”.  Although the general legislation on state secrecy has been updated in the past 10 years, it is unclear whether the same can be said of the specific regulations on state secrecy in the courts.  “Trial secrets” is a related concept but the relevant regulations appear to be almost 30 years old and do not define the scope of the secrets clearly. They include accounts of discussions of judicial committees, and “views from relevant units.”

What is required?

In addition to setting broad principles such as timely and substantial disclosure (research done at Tsinghua has found that some courts upload their decisions to the SPC’s judgment database months late, or not at all) and a team of leading scholars  based at several US universities that includes Columbia Law School Professor Benjamin Liebman found a “missingness problem” when looking court judgment databases), the Judicial Transparency Opinion sets out specific requirements on transparency. Those requirements are set out in seven broad areas in which the courts should voluntarily release information (except those where law, administrative regulations, judicial interpretations do not permit release information and other information that is unsuitable for being made public (其他不宜公开). The phrase “unsuitable for being made public,” is flexible enough to cover both the politically sensitive on a larger and minor scale. (For more on unsuitability, see the article that Professor Liebman and colleagues wrote).  The preliminary section also calls for the greater use of white papers and court gazettes.

The seven categories include:

  1. Basic information about the court
  2. Enforcement;
  3. Litigation Services;
  4. Judicial reform;
  5. Judicial administration;
  6. International judicial exchanges and cooperation; and
  7. “Team construction” (队伍建设)

I have selected some areas in each category where greater openness is anticipated (and included some comments in italics).

A.   Among the useful new items in “basic information”

  • institutional establishment (机构设置) (generally refers to internal structures–both the Chinese and English version of the SPC website have this);
  • Normative documents (规范性文件)–Chinese law does not require these documents, which are not legally binding to be made public, but they guide the operation of the courts–if the SPC makes more of these documents public it would be a service to all;
  • Work reports to the people’s congress at the same level (makes life easier for research seeking to access this information over time);
  • Other basic information that needs to be widely known in society (it should include information for the “litigant in person” (the person without a lawyer, but it doesn’t).

B.  On enforcement, the SPC direct the lower courts to gradually expand the scope of enforcement openness.  Matters on the 12-item list include:

  • judicial statistics (presumably to include greater consistency among jurisdictions, unclear the scope of the statistics that may be released);
  • enforcement procedures (unclear whether this is for parties only or the general public);
  • bankruptcy information (not much is being made public);
  • Annual reports on enforcement in different substantive areas;
  • Judicial big data reports.

C.  Litigation services

  • Litigation guides (see the Shenzhen intermediate court’s list–while a good start, they are not user-friendly (guide to criminal collateral appeals, for example): 
  • court notices and information about judicial auctions and other information relating to the disposal of judicial property (this could be interesting in corruption-related cases);
  • judicial services, experts, bankruptcy administrators, etc.
  • specially appointed mediators and mediation organizations; lawyers stationed at the courts, other volunteers assisting with litigation;
  • Channels for collateral appeals and petitioning;
  • other information relating to party’s rights in litigation and other information the public should know–again see the suggestion above (for Chinese litigants) and this blog has previously made for non-Chinese litigants and defendants as well (foreigners and others from outside of mainland China also need some easily understandable information about the Chinese court system).

D.  The SPC calls for greater transparency relating to Judicial reform so that the public will have greater confidence in it, including:

  • judicial reform documents (would make the life of researchers trying to assemble the judicial reform puzzle much easier);
  • Information on progress in judicial reform [unclear whether the drafters are referring to white papers]
  • Other information the public should know (that ideally should include statistics related to judicial reform, including resignations of personnel, but appears unlikely);

E. Judicial administration–The SPC calls for the courts to accept supervision by society.  The measures include:

  • Matters relating to societal interests and follow up from suggestions made by National People’s Congress/Consultative Congress members (it would be useful to know what percentage of court staff is “on the front-line” of hearing cases rather than being in an administrative role);
  • Technical standards.

F. International judicial exchanges and cooperation–increase exchanges and reference between legal cultures, create a good impression internationally of the Chinese courts, promote their international competitiveness, influence and credibility:

  • important international judicial exchanges
  • important international judicial conferences;
  • other matters that society should know about.
    No mention of lists of projects for which the Chinese courts would welcome international exchanges and interchange of legal concepts. No mention of how a foreigner would be able to attend a court hearing in China.
  1. “Team construction”–this term is a Party term (but the Party is in charge of cadres)–i.e. this section relates to judicial personnel
  • the situation relating to Party construction (listed first, understandable in the post 19th Party Congress era);
  • Personnel work (it would be useful to have a breakdown of the number of judges and other judicial support personnel as well as those in administrative roles, as well as resignations and appointments);
  • Disciplinary information (it would be useful to have full decisions published, as in other jurisdictions);
  • Training and education.

Other issues

The final paragraph of the Judicial Transparency Opinion calls for implementing measures and more detailed measures to be drafted and for measures to be put in place.  So it can be expected that specific departments of the SPC will be involved in drafting more specific guidelines (will that involve more specifics on the types of statistics on criminal convictions released)?  Once the national guidelines are in place, we can anticipate that provincial high courts (or their equivalents) will issue implementing documents.  It is only then that we will be able to comment on what the actual impact of this document is.

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?

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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.

Academic exchanges, Communist Party and the Courts

Bridging Chinese academia & “the system” (updated)

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Screen Shot 2018-10-06 at 7.27.00 PM
President Zhou Qiang & Xu Jiaxin, former head of the SPC Political Dept, with SPC guazhi & other scholars

In a number of legal systems around the world, governments and sometimes court systems have institutions or practices in place to bring legal academics into government service and sometimes into the courts (and there are also professionals going the other way round). My former Havard Law School contracts professor, Charles Fried, illustrates that, as he served as Solicitor General and an Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.  Similar practices occur in civil law countries–German law professors are often appointed to either the German or European judiciary.  This type of practice has the advantage of bringing some new thinking and ideas into the bureaucracy or judiciary, and for those who return to academia from government service, it grounds their scholarship in the real world. Harold Koh, of Yale Law School, is an exemplar, having spent almost three years as the US State Department’s Legal Adviser during the Obama administration.

What about China?  Chinese academics generally go directly into teaching without any experience in practice and when they advocate certain reforms, they may not understand the institutional environment (the “system” (体制).

Several years ago a system was put in place to bridge the worlds of academia and “the system,” that took one friend teaching in a Chinese law school into a local court, and has taken several others into the Supreme People’s Court (SPC). That system is the temporary assignment/transferred duty (挂职锻炼 guazhi duanlian) system.  I’ll use the term guazhi.

“temporary assignment” (挂职)

As I wrote in my 1993 article, the courts (including the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)) have long used the guazhi system.  Back then (and now) it is used to send cadres (of which judges are one type) to the basic level or at least the lower level for some “real life” experience (while retaining their upper-level position) and often is the prelude for promotion.  The system has finally caught the attention of political scientists outside of China, as some recent academic articles attest.

Under the guazhi program that these friends participated in, academics go into the courts and procuracy for one or two years, depending on the institution.  The basis for the guazhi system between legal academia and the courts and other legal institutions was originally a 2011 joint document between the Central Political-Legal Committee and the Ministry of Education, Some Opinions on Plans for Cultivating Outstanding Legal Talent (教育部 中央政法委员会关于实施卓越法律人才教育培养计划的若干意见). This document has been updated to incorporate the latest policies on training high-quality legal professionals in the post 19th Party Congress new era.

In October 2018, the Ministry of Education and Central Political-Legal Committee issued an updated (2.0) version of this document.  The guazhi system must have been assessed as worthwhile, successful, and helpful in training legal professionals for the new era because it remains firmly in place: “select core law school legal academics to go to the operational departments of the legal system for temporary assignment” (选聘高校法学骨干教师到法治实务部门挂职锻炼).

The full text of the document (关于建立人民法院与法学院校双向交流机制的指导意见), that the SPC issued to implement the 2011 joint document appears not to have been released, and it is too soon (as of this writing) for the SPC to have updated its earlier document. The requirements for guazhi scholars are clear from the notice soliciting applications. The small number of scholars posted to the SPC must commit for a two year period, may sit as judges (they are appointed as deputy division chiefs or their equivalent and confirmed and removed by the National People’s Congress Standing Committee), must be recommended by their home institution, meet both (the standard) political and scholarly requirements, and be under the age of 55. They must work at least two days a week or at least 100 hours a year and may commit to the SPC either part or full time.

SPC guazhi scholars have included:

In the field of international/cross-border law, Liu Jingdong of the International Law Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and Shan Wenhua of Xi’an Jiaotong University. A few searches show that Professor Liu, who was posted to the #4 Civil Division (dealing with cross-border issues) worked on some of the important issues that the division is dealing with: maritime law, arbitration, free trade zones, and Belt & Road. Professor Liu’s farewell to the SPC #4 Division gives a flavor of the issues that the division is dealing with as well as the long hours worked by its judges（and may go some way to explaining why guidelines on the operation of the China International Commercial Court have not yet been issued).

Criminal law: Lin Wei of the China Youth University of Political Studies and Lu Jianping and Liu Guangsan of Beijing Normal University. Professors Lin and Lu have both commented on death penalty-related issues.

Administrative Division: Wang Xizhuang of Peking University.

Judicial Reform and Research Office: Sun Xianzhong (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences) and Wang Haiyan (China University of Political Science and Law).

The scholars are all from leading institutions and many of them have some experience outside of China.  Several of them were asked to stay beyond the original two years, indicating that they were well-received. The vast majority have been men.

The bottom line is–does guazhi work for both the institution and the individual?  In theory, guazhi in the SPC should benefit both sides–the academics, who generally lack practical experience, the SPC, by having another pair of senior hands to work on research linked to drafting judicial interpretations and other policy documents with some fresh ideas, including ideas based on research or experience abroad.

But it likely depends on other skills of the individuals involved.  Are the scholars able to adapt to the culture of the hierarchical Chinese court system?  Do their temporary colleagues help them to adapt or do they step away? Are they able to communicate with senior court leaders in the required language?  When they discuss cases, visit local courts or train local judges, are they able to leave academic jargon behind?  One knowledgeable person suggested that the best guazhi scholars are able to influence senior leaders in a positive way, bringing new ideas into the bureaucratic court system, while another noted that unless guazhi scholars work full-time, their contribution will be limited, as they fail to harmonize with the way the system operates.

 

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

Socialist core values & Chinese judicial interpretations

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20180307_082132
socialist core values poster in a Shanghai hotel

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jiang Qibo classified the interpretations into five broad categories:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5. On prosperity, creativity, and greenness:

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

On the intellectual property front:

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

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

 

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

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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:

  1. Secretary of the Central Political Legal Committee, Guo Shengkun (Guo);
  2. President of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC), Zhou Qiang;
  3. Chief Procurator General Zhang Jun;
  4. Central Military Commission Political Legal Committee Party Secretary;
  5. Minister of Public Security;
  6. Minister of State Security;
  7. 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?

  1. 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)? 
  2.  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.

 

 

 

administrative cases, bankruptcy law, Communist Party and the Courts, judicial interpretations

What’s on the Supreme People’s Court’s judicial interpretation agenda (II)?

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SPC General office document issuing the 2018 judicial interpretation plan

The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has a yearly plan for drafting judicial interpretations, as set out in its 2007 regulations on judicial interpretation work , analogous to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its legislative plans. Judicial interpretations, for those new to this blog, are binding on the SPC itself and the lower courts, and fill in some of the interstices of Chinese law (further explained here).

On 10 July, the SPC’s General Office issued the document above. It sets out a list of 48 judicial interpretation projects for 2018 (with several for 2019) for which the SPC judicial committee’s had given project initiation/approval (立项) designating one or more SPC divisions/offices with primary drafting responsibility (this process to be detailed in a forthcoming article).  It appears to be the first time this type of document was publicly released (please contact me with corrections).  If so, it is a concrete step in increasing the SPC’s transparency (addressed in part in one of my forthcoming academic articles). The projects, deadlines, and some brief comments (some longer than others) follow below.

(“Project initiation”/”project approval” is a procedure well-known to those of us who have been involved in foreign investment projects in China, where it involves approval from the planning authorities, primarily for infrastructure projects, but is an initial procedure used by regulatory authorities of all types, Party and state. For the SPC, it reflects one of the planned economy aspects of the way it operates.

The document classifies the 48 projects into three categories:

  1. 2018 year-end deadline;
  2. 2019 half-year deadline;
  3. 2019 deadline.

This post will discuss the projects in the second and third categories, the ones with deadlines in 2019.

From these we can see which projects are the highest priority and where the SPC sees gaping regulatory holes need to be filled, reflecting its political-legal priorities. Often specific issues have already been on the agenda of the relevant division of the SPC for some time before they have been officially been approved by the SPC’s judicial committee.

As discussed in my previous blogpost, several of the interpretations listed for 2018 have already been issued. It is unclear which other drafts will be made public for comment, as the 2007 regulations do not require it to do so. Making this list known may put some pressure on the SPC to undertake more public consultation.  Few if any interpretations in the area of criminal or criminal procedure law have been issued for public comment.

First half of 2019 deadline

  1. Standardizing the implementation of the death penalty (规范死刑执行).  Apparently this will focus on more setting out more detailed guidelines concerning how the death penalty is implemented, linked to the Criminal Procedure Law and the SPC’s interpretations of the Criminal Procedure Law.

This article on a legal website sets out the steps in implementation and notes that parading of the persons to be executed is prohibited (although this rule seems to be ignored in too many localities).  A recent scholarly article provides some detail (in Chinese). It is possible that 2008 regulations on suspension of the death penalty will be updated. Responsibility of the #1 Criminal Division.  Given the sensitivity of issues related to the death penalty, it is significant that the SPC leadership decided to make this list public, given that this interpretation is on the list.

2. Judicial interpretation on harboring and assisting a criminal.  These provisions occur in various parts of the Criminal Law and are also mentioned in the organized crime opinion discussed in this earlier blogpost.  Drafting responsibility of the #4 Criminal Division.

3.  Interpretation relating to the protection of heroes and martyrs.  With the incorporation of the protection of heroes and martyrs in the Civil Code and the passage of the Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law earlier this year, drafting of a related judicial interpretation was expected.  Responsibility of the #1 Civil Division.

4.Interpretation on technical investigators in litigation.  Responsibility of the #3 Civil Division) (IP Division).  I look forward to Mark Cohen’s further comments on this.

5. Interpretation on the recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments.  This blog flagged this development last year.  Judge Shen Hongyu of the # 4 Civil Division, who wrote this article on issues related to the recognition and enforcement of foreign court judgments, is likely involved in the drafting.  Drafting responsibility of the #4 Civil Division.

6. Disputes over forestry rights, apparently an area with many disputes.  The Environmental and Natural Resources Division is responsible for drafting.

7.Regulations on responsible persons of administrative authorities responding to law suits, relating to new requirements in the amended Administrative Litigation Law. and the 2018 judicial interpretation of the Administrative Litigation Law. The Administrative Division is in charge of drafting.

8.Regulations on the consolidated review of normative documents in administrative cases.  The Administrative Division is in charge of drafting this.

9. Regulations on the consolidated hearing of administrative and civil disputes, apparently related to item #22 in the previous blogpost. Responsibility of the Administrative Division.

10.  Application of the criminal law to cases involving the organization of cheating on state examinations (linked to Amendment #9 to the Criminal Law). The Research Office is responsible for drafting.

11. Application of the criminal law to crimes involving network use and aiding persons in such crimes (cyber crimes).  This article discusses some of the issues. The Research Office is responsible for drafting this.

End 2019 deadline

  1. Jointly with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, Interpretation on Certain Issues Related to the Application of Law in Criminal Cases of Dereliction of Duty (II), likely updating interpretation (I) in light of the anti-corruption campaign and the establishment of the National Supervision Commission.
  2. Interpretation on limiting commutation during the period of the suspension of death sentences.  See related research in English and Chinese. The #5 Criminal Division is responsible for this.
  3. Interpretation on the trial of labor disputes (V), likely dealing with some of the most pressing labor law issues facing the courts that are not covered by the preceding four interpretations or relevant legislation.   The #1 Civil Division is in charge of drafting.
  4. Regulations on maritime labor service contracts, likely connected with China’s accession to the 2006 Maritime Labor Convention and a large number of disputes in the maritime courts involving maritime labor service contracts.  The #4 Civil Division is in charge of drafting.
  5. Regulations on the hearing of administrative cases, likely filling in the procedural gaps in the Administrative Litigation Law and its judicial interpretation.  The Administrative Division is responsible for drafting this.
  6.  Personal information rights disputes judicial interpretation, linked to the Civil Code being drafted.  Implications for individuals and entities, domestic and foreign. Responsibility of the Research Office.
  7.  Amending (i.e. updating) the 2001 Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on Certain Issues Concerning Application of Urging and Supervision Procedure, relating to the enforcement of payment orders by creditors.  Responsibility of the Research Office.

 

 

 

 

administrative cases, bankruptcy law, Communist Party and the Courts, judicial interpretations

What’s on the Supreme People’s Court’s judicial interpretation agenda (I)?

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Screen Shot 2018-07-18 at 8.34.32 AM
SPC General office document issuing the 2018 judicial interpretation plan

The Supreme People’s Court (SPC) has a yearly plan for drafting judicial interpretations, as set out in its 2007 regulations on judicial interpretation work  (I have not been able to locate a free translation, unfortunately), analogous to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and its legislative plans.  Judicial interpretations, for those new to this blog, are binding on the SPC itself and the lower courts, and fill in some of the interstices of Chinese law (further explained here).  On 10 July, the SPC’s General Office issued the document above. It sets out a list of 48 judicial interpretation projects for 2018 (with several for 2019).  The document details the projects for which the SPC judicial committee had given project initiation/approval (立项), designating one or more SPC divisions/offices with primary drafting responsibility (this process to be detailed in a forthcoming article).  It appears to be the first time this type of document was publicly released (please contact me with corrections).  If so, it is a concrete step in increasing the SPC’s transparency (addressed in part in one of my forthcoming academic articles). The projects, deadlines, and some brief comments (some longer than others) follow below.

(“Project initiation”/”project approval” is a procedure well-known to those of us who have been involved in foreign investment projects in China, where it involves approval from the planning authorities, primarily for infrastructure projects, but is an initial procedure used by regulatory authorities of all types, Party and state. For the SPC, it reflects one of the “planned economy” aspects of the way it operates.

The document classifies the 48 projects into three categories:

  1. 2018 year-end deadline;
  2. 2019 half-year deadline;
  3. 2019 deadline.

From these we can see which projects are the highest priority and where the SPC sees gaping regulatory holes that need to be filled, reflecting its political-legal priorities. Often specific issues have already been on the agenda of the relevant division of the SPC for some time before they have been officially been approved by the SPC’s judicial committee.

Several of the listed interpretations have already been issued.  The SPC has solicited public opinion at least one of these draft interpretations, and it is unclear which other drafts will be made public for comment, as the 2007 regulations do not require it to do so. Making this list known may put some pressure on the SPC to undertake more public consultation.

This post will discuss the projects in the first category only, with a follow-up post discussing the projects in the second and third categories.

30 projects with a 2018 year-end deadline

  1. Regulations on the jurisdiction of the Shanghai Financial Court.  The NPC Standing Committee decision required the SPC to do so and included some broad brush principles on the new court’s jurisdiction.  As the SPC has announced that the court will be inaugurated at the end of August,  this is likely to be the highest priority project.  The Case Filing Division is in charge.
  2. Regulations on pre-filing property protection provisional measures (关于办理诉前财产保全案件适用法律若干问题的解释 ), a type of pre-filing injunction.  These regulations are for non-intellectual property (IP) cases, as item 18 below addresses provisional measures in IP cases (in which a great deal of interest exists in the intellectual property rights community, as these order can affect a company’s business). The Case Filing Division is in charge.  These regulations could benefit from some market input.
  3. Interpretation with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on the Handling of Cases of Corruption and Bribery (II), likely updating the 2016 interpretation to reflect the establishment and operation of the National Supervisory Commission and addressing issues that have arisen in practice.  Issues to be covered likely include ones discussed in issued #106 of Reference to Criminal Trial (the journal of the SPC’s five criminal divisions, mentioned here) .  The #3 Criminal Division is in charge of drafting, but it is likely that the supervision commission will be/is one of the institutions providing input.  As I have mentioned earlier, the SPC generally does not solicit public opinion when drafting criminal law judicial interpretations.
  4. Judicial interpretation on the handling of criminal cases of securities and futures market manipulation.  This is linked to the government’s crackdown on abuses in the financial sector (see this report on the increase in regulatory actions) and is linked to last summer’s Financial Work Conference. The #3 Criminal Division is responsible.  It is likely the China Securities Regulatory Commission will provide input during the drafting process.
  5. Judicial interpretation on the handling of cases involving the use of non-public information for trading (Article 180 of the Criminal Law). Guiding case #61 involved  this crime.  It is likely that the principle from the guiding case will be incorporated into this judicial interpretation, as frequently occurs.  Again linked to the crackdown on the financial sector and again, it is a task for the #3 Criminal Division.
  6. Judicial interpretation on the handling of underground banking (地下钱庄) cases.  Large amounts of money are being whisked out of China unofficially.  Linked again to the crackdown on the financial sector as well efforts to slow the outflow of funds from China, and likely the People’s Bank of Chin.  Again, a task for the #3 Criminal Division.
  7. Interpretation on challenges to enforcement procedures in civil cases, related to the campaign to basically resolve enforcement difficulties within two to three years.  Drafting this is a task for the #1 Civil Division.
  8. Interpretation on evidence in civil procedure.  Important for lawyers and litigants, domestic and foreign.  Drafting this is a task for the #1 Civil Division.
  9. Interpretation on civil cases involving food safety. Food safety is an area in which public interest cases are contemplated.  These cases have been politically sensitive.  Drafting this is a task for the #1 Civil Division.
  10. Interpretation on construction contracts (II). The initial interpretation dates back to 2004. These type of disputes generally involve a chain of interlocking contracts and often regulatory and labor issues. Some of the larger cases have been heard by the SPC. Drafting this is a task for the #1 Civil Division.
  11. Interpretation on the designation of bankruptcy administrators.  Issues surrounding bankruptcy administrators have been ongoing in the bankruptcy courts, as has been discussed in earlier blogposts. Drafting this is a task for the #2 Civil Division.
  12. Regulations on the consolidating the bankruptcy of company affiliates, again an area where regulation is insufficient, posing issues for bankruptcy judges (as has been discussed in earlier blogposts). Drafting this is a task for the #2 Civil Division.
  13. Regulations on the civil and commercial cases relating to bank cards.  The drafting of this interpretation has been underway for several years, with a draft issued for public comment in June.  There have been a large number of disputes in the courts involving bank cards.  Drafting this is a task for the #2 Civil Division.
  14. Interpretation on legal provisions relating to financial asset management companies acquiring, managing, and disposing of non-performing assets.  The legal infrastructure related to non-performing assets is inadequate, as has been pointed out by all participants, including judges. The Shenzhen Intermediate Court has run several symposia bringing together leading experts from the market.  Drafting this is a task for the #2 Civil Division.
  15. Interpretation on the trial of internet finance cases (civil aspects), as existing judicial interpretations inadequately address the issues facing the lower courts. Drafting this is a task for the #2 Civil Division.
  16. Judicial interpretation on the statute of limitations in the General Provisions of the Civil Code (just issued), which was the responsibility of the #1 and #2 Civil Divisions as well as the Research Office. The General Provisions changed the length of the statute of limitations.
  17. Judicial interpretation on administrative cases involving patent authorization and confirmation. It appears to be the counterpart in the patent area of a 2017 judicial interpretation relating to trademarks.  I look forward to “brother blogger” Mark Cohen’s further comments on this. Drafting this is a task for the #3 Civil Division.
  18. As mentioned above, pre-filing injunctions in intellectual property cases (知识产权纠纷诉前行为保全案件适用法律若干问题的解释 ), a type of pre-filing injunction.  There is great deal of interest in the intellectual property rights community concerning these injunctions, as these orders can affect a company’s business. I look forward to Mark Cohen’s further comments on this. Drafting this is a task for the #3 Civil Division.
  19. Regulations on issues relating to the International Commercial Court.  Those were the responsibility of the #4 Civil Division and the interpretation was issued at the end of June.  See the previous blogpost for further comments.
  20.  Regulations on the scope of environmental and natural resources cases, with drafting responsibility placed on the Environmental and Natural Resources Division. These relate to current government efforts to improve the environment.  I would anticipate that these would include provisions on cross-regional centralized jurisdiction, so that pressure from local government will be reduced. Several provinces have already introduced such guidelines.
  21. Interpretation on compensation for harm to the environment, also with drafting responsibility placed on the Environmental and Natural Resources Division.  This is related to an end 2017 Central Committee/State Council General Office document on reforming compensation for harm to the environment. Again, Drafting responsibility with the Environmental and Natural Resources Division.
  22. Regulations on the trial of administrative agreements.  There is a tension between the administrative and civil/commercial specialists, as reflected in the area of Public Private Partnerships  (PPPs)(see this earlier blogpost).  This has practical implications for both the domestic and foreign business community, as the government is seeking to expand the use of PPPs and avoid local government abuse of them.  Drafting responsibility with the Administrative Division and the Ministry of Finance is likely to be providing input.
  23. Regulations on administrative compensation cases, drafting responsibility with the Administrative Division.
  24. Interpretation related to agency issues in retrial (再审) cases.  With the many governance problems of Chinese companies, these issues frequently arise.  Drafting responsibility with the Judicial Supervision Division.
  25. Interpretation on the enforcement of notarized debt instruments.  Lenders often use this provision to seek more efficient enforcement.  This is related to the campaign to improve enforcement as well as government policy relating to the financial sector.  This research report by one of Beijing’s intermediate court shows that asset management companies are often the creditors and the large amounts of money are involved. Drafting responsibility with the Enforcement Bureau.
  26. Interpretation relating to the enforcement of cases involving company shareholding.  Given the complexities of shareholding in China, including the frequent use of nominee arrangements, these are difficult issues for judges to deal with.  See a recent presentation by one of the circuit court judges on this issue.  Drafting responsibility with the Enforcement Bureau.
  27.  Regulations on reference pricing when disposing of property.  This too is related to the enforcement campaign as well as efforts to clean up the enforcement divisions of the local courts by requiring more transparent procedures.
  28. Interpretation on the Handling of Cases of Crimes Disturbing the Administration of Credit Cards (II), updating the SPC’s 2009 interpretation, found here. Responsibility of the Research Office, which can coordinate with criminal divisions involved as well as interested authorities such as the China Banking Regulatory Commission.
  29. Interpretation on cases involving both civil and criminal issues.  This is a longstanding issue, and with the crackdown on the private lending sector, this has come to the fore.  Among the many issues include: if the defendant is criminally prosecuted first and assets are confiscated, how can affected borrowers or other parties  be compensated.  Drafting responsibility with the research office, likely involving several civil and criminal divisions.
  30. Regulations on the implementation of the People’s Assessors Law. As the law and the follow up SPC notice are too general for courts to implement, more detailed rules are needed.  The Political Department (it handles personnel related issues) and Research Office are involved in drafting.

See the next blogpost for a discussion of interpretation in the second and third categories.

 

 

 

Communist Party and the Courts

Signals in Supreme People’s Court President Zhou Qiang’s 2018 report to NPC (part 2)

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Screen Shot 2018-05-10 at 12.54.58 PMFor 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 second and third parts 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 2) is not comprehensive but provides some highlights. It signals that the work of the SPC is perfectly synchronized with national policy.

Judicial protection of human rights

The second section of the speech touched on correction and prevention of “mistaken cases,” a topic mentioned in previous NPC reports, and still an ongoing issue.  Over the past five years,  6747 criminal cases have been reopened and retried. Among the measures the report mentions is:

  • policy documents on preventing mistaken cases;
  • the courts implementing principles of evidence-based judgments; (note that China does not yet have detailed criminal evidence rules, but see Judge Yu Tongzhi‘s remarks at a high profile criminal evidence conference on 19-20 May for the latest thinking of the SPC’s criminal divisions)
  • “no conviction in case of doubt;” (most useful discussions of this are behind academic publishers’ paywalls);
  • strictly implementing the death penalty; (as mentioned in earlier blogposts, there have been calls within China to be more transparent on the numbers, but this  decision likely needs top-level clearance);
  • improving legal aid in criminal cases, piloting in some provinces (including Guangdong) full coverage at all levels; [note Art. 21 of these regulations reveal concern about lawyers stirring up troubles, with language similar to Ministry of Justice regulations (不得恶意炒作案件，对案件进行歪曲、有误导性的宣传和评论);

Courts serve economic policy goals

This section highlighted the SPC’s accomplishments in supporting national economic policy goals.  The statistics are all for the past five years. Many of these topics have been previously discussed on this blog:

  1. Commercial cases:  the Chinese courts heard 16,438,000 first instance cases (in the last five years), up almost 54%;
  2. the SPC promoted bankruptcy trials, including developing a national bankruptcy information platform (limited information available–related blogpost here); issued a policy document on transferring cases from enforcement proceedings to bankruptcy; dealt with zombie enterprises by hearing and closing 12,000 bankruptcy cases (over the last five years); issued a company law judicial interpretation; heard and closed 4,106.000 sales tcontracts and 1,320,000 real estate cases.
  3. The SPC served major economic strategies, through issuing 16 measures related to Chinese companies engaging in foreign trade and investment, and the Belt & Road. It established a coordination mechanism for the Beijing, Hebei, and Tianjin courts (blogpost here).  The northeastern courts have provided judicial services to the region’s rejuvenation (see previous blogposts on some of the many legal and social issues); Guangdong, Fujian, etc. courts have provided services to Free Trade Zones;
  4. In the area of finance-related cases, the courts have prevented and resolved financial risk (a concern of the day) by:
  • issuing a policy document on financial cases (post the 2017 Financial Work Conference, on the Monitor’s to-do list),
  • trying and closing 5,030,000 finance-related cases (including insurance, securities, and financial institution loans),
  • trying and closing 7,059,000 private lending cases, 152,000 internet finance cases;
  • struck at illegal fund-raising etc.  (no statistics).  Expect to see more cases in this area in 2018.

4. SPC has improved judicial protection of entrepreneur’s property rights by issuing 17 policy documents (the number may indicate the depth of the problem) (see related blogposts).

5. SPC has supported national innovation policy through issuing an outline on judicial intellectual property (IP) protection, hearing and closing 683,000 IP cases,  working on strategies to deal with the issue for both Chinese and foreign IP holders that in China, IP infringement is low cost but protecting IP rights is high cost, trying the Jordan case and the Huawei v. IDC case.

6.  In the area of environmental protection, the SPC has issued an interpretation on public interest litigation, and concluded 487,000 environmental civil cases, with 11,000 cases of compensation for ecological environmental damages, 1,383 cases of environmental public interest litigation initiated by the procuracy (one of my students is looking into this), and 252 environmental public interest litigation cases were filed by social organizations.

7. In foreign-related cases, the Chinese courts concluded 75,000 foreign-related commercial and civil cases (note they account for a tiny proportion of cases in the Chinese courts).  Although the SPC says that more and more foreign parties have agreed to settle disputes in the Chinese courts, Professor Vivienne Bath’s research has shown that foreign parties are often dragged into the Chinese courts because of principles in Chinese law leading to parallel proceedings.   The protection of “judicial sovereignty” has multiple implications (some explained in the linked article).  This year, after several years of drafting, the SPC has issued a set of three judicial interpretations on the judicial review of arbitration. Supporting the national strategy of increasing its maritime power, the Chinese courts have heard 72,000 maritime first instance cases.  The SPC describes the maritime courts as effectively safeguarding the country’s maritime security and judicial sovereignty.

9. On foreign judicial exchanges, the SPC has handled 15,000 international judicial assistance cases (in fact both Chinese and foreign practitioners complain about how long assistance takes); and the SPC has used international conferences to promote its international role, particularly vis a vis Belt & Road countries.