In December, 2023, the Supreme People’s Court (SPC)’s glossy magazine China Trial (中国审判) featured the top 10  keywords of the people’s courts for 2023 (人民法院十大关键词). Provincial high court WeChat public accounts republished the article in a way that enabled those courts to incorporate examples from courts under their jurisdiction and to link to further commentary on the Xuexi Qiangguo (学习强国) platform.  As the followers of this blog could anticipate, each keyword is illustrated with Xi Jinping quotations, important speeches by SPC President Zhang Jun, illustrations of model court practice, and commentary by leading academics.  “For the avoidance of doubt,”  the invited commentary by leading academics is not meant as scholarly analysis. The article itself and the invited commentary are worded in New Era official discourse.  The intent is to weave these phrases into a summary of 2023 and forward-looking SPC policy. These keywords (or at least their spirit) are found in the report on the recently concluded National Conference of Higher Court Presidents. That report (2024 National Court Presidents Conference report) focuses on 2024 goals.

Who is the audience for this China Trial article?  I surmise it is those in political and court leadership positions.  Line judges are more pragmatic.  They have learned the significance of these keywords through Party meetings but are more focused on their cases.

I. Take a Political View and Handle Matters According to the Rule of Law (从政治上看 从法治上办）

 

The readers of this blog could anticipate a version of this phrase would rank first. Dean Xu Shenjian of the China University of Political Science and Law explained what this means.  (Among Dean Xu’s many writings is a forthcoming book with one of my colleagues at the Peking University School of Transnational Law on legal ethics in Greater China.)

Dean Xu said that this phrase has become the core concept of the work of the courts. This concept not only emphasizes the unity of political responsibility and legal responsibility but also highlights the important position of judicial work within the framework of the comprehensive rule of law. This requires that the court’s work be integrated into the country’s major political principles and social governance. Court work is professional work with a strong political nature, and it is also political work with a strong professional nature.  He said that courts should strive to organically unify political thinking and adhere to the rule of law in specific judicial practices.

Comment: This principle has been stressed by SPC President Zhang Jun since he assumed office and post 19th Party Congress, by former SPC President Zhou Qiang. This principle can be expected to be incorporated into the forthcoming sixth five-year court reform plan and underlies court practice at all levels.  This blog has previously mentioned this (see here, here, and here, for example) and my forthcoming article in China Law & Society Review will also discuss this. It is emphasized in the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report.

II. Active Justice (能动司法）

The second-ranking keyword is “active justice.” Professor Zhang Qi, retired Peking University law professor of legal theory, was invited to explain this phrase.  He said active justice means that in the New Era, courts will implement the central government’s decision-making and deployment, based on its judicial functions, transform judicial concepts, adhere to a proactive judiciary that actively assumes its responsibilities, and provide powerful judicial services and guarantees for Chinese-style modernization.

Comment: I flagged this keyword in several blogposts in 2023 and my forthcoming article also discusses this.  As Judge Liu Shude recently gave a long presentation on active justice and reasoning in judicial documents, I surmise that this phrase will be further developed during President Zhang Jun’s tenure.  This principle can be expected to be incorporated into the forthcoming SPC report to the National People’s Congress and in the new judicial reform outline plan. It is mentioned several times in the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report.

III. Grasp the Front End and Engage in Preventative Treatment (“抓前端、治未病”)

According to the explanation of this keyword,  the core concept is that the rule of law must not only focus on the back end to treat existing diseases but also focus on the front end to engage in preventative treament…”   To solve this problem, the people’s courts must actively integrate into national and social governance, insist on handling one case and resolving a group.

Comment:  As several blogposts have identified, these principles have been stressed by SPC President Zhang Jun, particularly using typical cases to resolve multiple cases. Post-19th Party Congress, former SPC President Zhou Qiang stressed these as well, as they are part of Xi Jinping legal thought. 

IV.  Win-win (both parties winning), Win-win (multiple parties winning), Winning Together （双赢多赢共赢）

This blog has not used this phrase, although it has identified aspects of linked policies. Professor Wang Kai of Beihang University Law School explained this as follows. Under the unified leadership of the Party, administrative and judicial powers are designed to protect the fundamental interests of the people. Therefore, in judicial work, the judiciary must form a positive and working relationship with administrative organs, jointly promote strict law enforcement, and fair administration of justice.

Comment:  Cooperation and harmonization of approaches between the judiciary and administrative authorities have been stressed since 2022, if not earlier.  The fact that it is included as a top keyword signals that this will be further developed. Although I haven’t written about this yet, I have pointed this trend to those working in specific regulatory areas, such as intellectual property law (see this joint policy document issued by the SPC and the Intellectual Property Administration and the  2022  Opinions on Providing Judicial Services and Safeguards for Accelerating the Construction of a Unified National Market.

V. If I were suing (如我在诉)

The core of this phrase is to encourage judges to put themselves in the shoes of litigants. The comments of Professor Xiong Qiuhong of the China University of Political Science and Law (previously seconded to the SPC’s judicial reform office, and almost 20 years ago, a Yale Law School visiting scholar), provided further analysis that provides a glimpse into official assessments of public perceptions about the judicial system.  She said that “litigants often file lawsuits out of necessity and sometimes have doubts about whether judicial officers can administer justice impartially. If judicial personnel can put themselves in others’ shoes and engage in judicial trials with the concept of “if I am suing”, listen carefully to the demands of the parties, take their views seriously, and patiently watch every word and deed of the parties so that the parties can feel the process of participating in the litigation. When they feel that they are taken seriously and that their active participation can effectively affect the outcome of litigation, they can reduce or even eliminate the doubts of the parties and build trust in judicial fairness.”

Comment:  Professor Xiong’s comments provide a semi-official assessment of public perceptions of the judiciary. This phrase is mentioned in the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report.

VI Judicial Administration （审判管理）

Professor Xiong Yuemin (熊跃敏) of Beijing Normal University’s law school focused on the revision of the judicial performance indicator system when explaining the significance of this phrase.  She said that establishing an improved set of trial management indicator systems that are consistent with requirements for the people’s courts to thoroughly implement Xi Jinping’s thought on the rule of law and is important to promote the modernization of trial work through the modernization of trial management.

Comment:  I had flagged this in my NYU article. When I raised this reform with a well-known scholar of China’s court system, he responded with a link to Goodhart’s Law:  “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”  As explained in this article: “In other words, when we use a measure to reward performance, we provide an incentive to manipulate the measure in order to receive the reward. This can sometimes result in actions that actually reduce the effectiveness of the measured system while paradoxically improving the measurement of system performance.” 

This phrase is further expanded in the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report to incorporate both political and substantive aspects.

VII. All Letters (and visits) Must Be Answered (有信必复）

Based on discussions with judges in local courts (and research), letters and visits work has become much more important in the local courts, with the stress on resolving the underlying issue (linking to the ongoing theme of “resolving disputes at source” (see keyword #3) and the greater importance of letters and visits (Xinfang) work nationally. The experience of some friends (and former students) who are working or have worked in local courts is that petitioners can be very strategic in how they petition, with keen sensibilities about extracting the maximum benefits from petitioning.

The spirit of this phrase can be found in the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report.

VIII One Network一张网

The explanation of “one network” links to a national conference at the National Judges College, at which President Zhang Jun spoke. The intent appears to create a unified network for the courts, planned and implemented by the SPC, which will enable unified data collection.  One of the provincial court presidents revealed in national court media what has been said in scholarship, that digitalization of the courts is insufficiently coordinated, leading to inconsistencies, duplication, and wasted resources.

This section mentioned that the SPC will proactively strengthen cooperation with other law enforcement and judicial agencies to open up “data islands” and achieve information sharing.

Comment:  It is unclear what the single network to which President Zhang Jun referred in that speech incorporates a single network for judicial decisions much discussed in both the domestic and international press. The lack of coordination and wasted resources in the digitalization of the courts is not surprising.  I would be surprised if the increased data sharing with other institutions goes smoothly, based on the SPC’s experience in linking its system with the Ministry of Justice for dealing with international judicial assistance matters.

The 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report contains a summary of the latest policy on China Judgments Online, further developed in this notice:

持续深化司法公开，加大裁判文书上网力度，妥善解决文书网使用效果不佳等问题，平衡好文书公开与当事人合法权利、隐私保护之间的关系，加强人民法院案例库建设，更优更实为司法审判优质高效服务，为社会公众学法、专家学者科研、律师办案服务。Continue to deepen judicial disclosure, increase efforts to make judgment documents online, properly solve problems such as poor usability of the Judgments website, balance the relationship between disclosing court documents and the parties’ legal rights and privacy protection, strengthen the construction of the people’s court case database, and make it better and more practical to provide high-quality and efficient services for judicial trials, as well as legal services for the public, scientific research by experts and scholars, and case handling by lawyers.

IX  Line Guidance (条线指导)

The explanation of this phrase links to two of the important SPC events in 2023–the conclusion of the pilot on the reform of the four levels of the Chinese courts and a related notice specifying the types of cases that lower courts should transfer to higher-level courts and a new system of guidance by court leaders that SPC President Zhang Jun unveiled in early September 2023, entitled “review (阅核)” piloted in some courts.  (For those who understand Chinese, I recommend the four-minute video of President Zhang embedded in this WeChat article, in which he explains the difference between review and approval (审批).  For those who do not, a brief glimpse of the video may reveal some differences between Chinese official judgecraft and that elsewhere in the world.)

Comment: Both events are linked to evolving policies under President Zhang Jun promoting guidance by higher-level courts of lower-level courts and guidance by senior judges of ordinary judges. One of the important reforms of the 4th Five-Year Judicial Reform Plan Outline was increasing the scope of judicial autonomy, while significantly increasing judicial accountability/responsibility. The fact that a senior academic published an article in People’s Court Daily to promote the review system in late November 2023 may signal a repurposed approval system for judicial decisions, in the forthcoming Sixth Five-Year Judicial Reform Plan Outline.

Comment: Although I have not previously written about this, I have been monitoring the development of the review system since that WeChat post was made public.  This phrase is developed in one sentence in the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report and is characterized as a policy requirement of the SPC (最高法关于阅核工作的意见要求),  focusing on the supervisory responsibilities of senior judges.

X. Investigation and Research 调查研究

Investigation and research is a phrase that has its roots in Mao Zedong thought, but which Xi Jinping has further developed (see this webpage with his important remarks).  As explained in this section, it is not only about deeply understanding problems but rather coming up with “prescriptions” to solve them, therefore linking with keyword #3.

Comment: I have an extended discussion of this in my NYU article.

Concluding comments

These ten keywords provide signals concerning the reshaping of the Chinese judiciary under the leadership of President Zhang Jun.  It can be expected that the forthcoming sixth five-year judicial reform plan will reflect these keywords and their related themes.  As can be seen, for the most part, they are incorporated into the goals for 2024. From these ten keywords and the 2024 National Court Presidents Conference report, further details concerning President Zhang Jun’s policies can be seen.  The repurposing of the phrase “four modernization” is highlighted in that report: “promote the formation of the “four modernizations” work layout of trial concepts, mechanisms, systems, and management (推进形成审判理念、机制、体系、管理“四个现代化”的工作布局).

From these ten keywords and the National Court President Conference report, we can see one aspect of the ongoing complex evolution of China’s judicial system.  When Dean Jiang Huiling spoke to my class in 2022, he commented that “in the current arrangement–in the Zhengfa (政法) reforms, Chinese characteristics have a great deal of weight and also in the reconstruction of the legal system.  Although China has learned a great deal from other countries, China has to go on its own way, since it has its own history, political situation, and historical stage and there is a change in the international situation.”  We are gradually seeing where China is “going its own way” and where developments are harmonized internationally.

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Many thanks to my readers for their patience these past several months while I have focused on finalizing my “neverending article” for publication and packing up several decades of books housed in my (former) office at Hong Kong University. A special thank you is due to those at Hong Kong University Law Faculty who made that office possible.

A separate special thank you is due to the two anonymous peer reviewers of this blogpost, particularly the person who called my attention to the repurposing of “four modernizations.”

If any readers have alternative translation suggestions, please contact me through the comment function or by email.