Chinese Court Structure
- Supreme People's CourtEnglish language website.
- The Supreme People’s Court (SPC)Archival resource.
- National People's CongressEnglish language text.
- Organic Law of the People's Courts of the People's Republic of ChinaThe 1980 Organic Law of the People's Courts of the People's Republic of China established the compositions, functions and the hierarchy of the courts in the People's Republic of China.
- The State Prosecution OrganThe People's Procuratorates are state supervisory authorities that investigate and prosecute potential cases that endanger national or public security.
- The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP)The procuratorate hierarchy comprises the Supreme People's Procuratorate, local people's procuratorates and military procuratorates. The people's procuratorates have four levels: the grassroots, intermediate, higher and supreme people's procuratorates. The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) is the highest procuratorial organ of the state and represents the state in independently implementing the right of prosecution. It is responsible to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Judicial Interpretation of Legislation
Legislation can be judicially interpreted without a specific case necessarily before the court. These interpretations provide lawyers, judges and researchers with invaluable information on the state of a legal issue or a disputed area of law.
- PKU Law (UniMelb staff & student access)For individual pieces of legislation found in the Laws & Regulations menu.
About Chinese judicial decisions
As with most civil law jurisdictions, judgments play a minimal role in subsequent judicial proceedings. Decisions are typically short - they list the arguments from each side, factual findings and the judgment. They rarely cite cases, and often do not refer to legislation. Higher courts are, however, more likely to explain their application of the law.
"The current Chinese legal system does not formally recognise cases or judicial precedents as a source of law. However, in practice, cases are often cited as persuasive authority and some courts follow judicial precedents to decide issues when statutes are vague. In particular certain decisions of the Supreme People's Court that can be read as generating legal norms have binding effect on lower courts." (Luo, Wei, Chinese law and legal research (Hein, 2005) 105)
- 'Which Chinese cases are most persuasive?' (Sept 16 2016)A useful blog post from the People's Supreme Court Monitor, which states that as China constructs its own case law system, Chinese courts are paying more attention to the use of precedent in considering how to decide cases, but clear rules on a hierarchy of precedent have yet to be settled. This blog links to other blog posts and articles on the issue. SPC Guiding Cases are highly persuasive - see box below on Guiding Cases.
Guiding Cases
As well as judgments (also called 'court opinions') the Supreme People's Court also provides guiding opinions / cases, which are considered highly persuasive. These opinions provide researchers with invaluable information on the state of a legal issue or a disputed area of law. The SPC started issuing guiding cases in 2011. These are selected from SPC judgments and other courts throughout the country. As at March 2017, there have been 87 cases designated as guiding. See Stanford Law School China Guiding Cases Project's website for English translations of:
- Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning Work on Case Guidance (Nov. 26, 2010)Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning Work on Case Guidance (Nov. 26, 2010) According to the Guiding Case Provisions, Chinese courts at all levels must refer to the guiding cases when adjudicating similar cases (Article 7).
- Detailed Implementing Rules on the “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning Work on Case Guidance” (May 13, 2015)Detailed Implementing Rules on the “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning Work on Case Guidance” (May 13, 2015), According to the rules, when a court refers to a guiding case in adjudicating a similar case, the court should quote the guiding case as a contributing reason for its decision, but not cite it as the basis of its decision (Article 10).
Guiding Cases are published in the monthly SPC Gazette. They are available on the following databases:
- Guiding Cases in Perspective (open access)In English on the Stanford Law School China Guiding Cases Project. This database is up to Guiding Case No.78, but the database does not include all guiding cases.
- PKU Law (UniMelb staff & student access)In English. Select Judicial Cases, then Guiding Cases or Model Cases from the menu on the left of the page.This database contains all guiding cases up to No.77.
- Vai Lo Lo, 'Towards the Rule of Law: Judicial Lawmaking in China' (2016) Open AccessThe author notes that 'the Supreme People’s Court has adopted the system of guiding cases, to which lower courts should ‘refer’ in adjudging similar cases. The introduction of the system of guiding cases has generated scholarly and professional interest in whether China will have case law as another source of law. This article examines judicial interpretations and the system of guiding cases and assesses the role of judicial lawmaking in China’s efforts to reform its legal system'.
Where to find Chinese judgments
All Chinese courts must post their judgments on the open-access Supreme People’s Court (SPC) online platform, China Judgements Online. As of August 29, 2016, 'judgment documents' that the courts must post online include not only criminal, civil, and administrative judgments, but also other judgment documents such as payment orders and state compensation decisions. Judgments must be uploaded to the site within 7 days. There are millions of judgments on this platform.
- China: Rules of Online Publication of Court Judgments RevisedSee more about the Rules of Online Publication of Court Judgments on Global Legal Monitor from the Law Library of Congress.
- China Judgements Online (open access)This site is in Chinese - there are no official English translations of decisions. However, Google Translate can show the site in English, where you can search and browse for judgments. If using Chrome, simply click the 'translate this page' icon in the righthand corner of the top menu bar. This site is completely up to date. Note that for non-Chinese speakers, it is very difficult to search this database - however, browsing is very effective.
- PKU Law (UniMelb staff & student access)The English version of this platform contains legal information intentionally tailored to the needs of foreigners and foreign organisations working in China. It includes;
• Approximately 2000 'representative' decisions that reflect current and predicted future trends in Chinese legal practice.
• Judicial interpretation of legislation. These are linked to from the legislation.
• The Chinese version is Beida Fabao- Cases Database, which contains civil, criminal and administrative cases. A two-way hypertext link function links cases to all related laws and regulations, and related cases. - ServicesAdditional information about more about PKU's English and Chinese cases databases.