A Brief Introduction To The Peoples Courts Of The Peoples Republic Of China

This book provides a comprehensive and contextual analysis of the various methods of civil dispute resolution in the PRC. The approach to analysis is historical, comparative and socio-legal.

This volume includes guiding cases of the Supreme People’s Court, cases deliberated on by the Judicial Council/Committee of the Supreme People’s Court, and cases discussed at the Joint Meetings of Presiding Judges from the various tribunals. This book is divided into four sections, including Cases by Justices, Selected Judicial Opinion(s), “Hot Cases” and “Typical Cases”, which will introduce readers to Chinese legal processes, legal methodologies and ideology in an intuitive, clear, and accurate manner.This volume presents cases selected by the trial departments of the Supreme People’s Court of China from their concluded cases. In order to give full weight to the legal value and social functions of cases from the Supreme People’s Court, and to achieve the goal of “serving the trial practices, serving economic and social development, serving legal education and legal scholarship, serving international legal exchanges among Chinese and foreign legal communities and serving the rule of law in China”, the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence, with the approval of the Supreme People’s Court, opted to publish “Selected Cases from the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China” in both Chinese and English, for domestic and overseas distribution.

This book includes guiding cases of the Supreme People’s Court, cases deliberated on by the Judicial Committee of the Supreme People’s Court and cases discussed at the Joint Meeting of Presiding Judges from various tribunals. This book is divided into three sections, including “Cases by Justices”, “Cases at Judicial Committee” and “Typical Cases”, which will introduce readers to Chinese legal processes, legal methodologies and ideology in an intuitive, clear and accurate manner. This book presents cases selected by the trial departments of the Supreme People’s Court of China from their concluded cases. In order to give full weight to the legal value and social functions of cases from the Supreme People’s Court, and to achieve the goal of “serving the trial practices, serving economic and social development, serving legal education and legal scholarship, serving international legal exchanges among Chinese and foreign legal communities , serving the rule of law in China”, the China Institute of Applied Jurisprudence, with the approval of the Supreme People’s Court, opts to publish “Selected Cases from the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China” in both Chinese and English, for domestic and overseas distribution.

This book includes guiding cases of the Supreme People’s Court, cases deliberated at the Adjudication Committee of the Supreme People’s Court, and cases discussed at the Joint Meetings of Presiding Judges from various tribunals. This book is divided into three sections, including Cases by Justices, Cases at the Adjudication Committee and Typical Cases, which will introduce readers to Chinese legal process, legal methodology and ideology in an intuitive, clear and accurate manner. This volume presents cases selected by the trial departments of the Supreme People’s Court of China from their concluded cases. In order to give full weight to the legal value and social function of cases from the Supreme People’s Court, and to achieve the goal of serving trial practices, serving economic and social development, serving legal education and legal scholarship, serving the rule of law in China, the China Applied Jurisprudence Institute, with the approval of the Supreme People’s Court, opts to publish Selected Cases from the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China in both Chinese and English, for domestic and overseas distribution.

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the court system of the People's Republic of China, in addition to evaluating the current situation and upcoming court reforms. It starts by describing the functions, competencies and structure of the Supreme People's Court, local people's courts and specialized people's courts. This paper then analyzes the relationship of people's courts with other national and local state organs such as people's congresses, people's governments and people's procuratorates as well as institutions of the Chinese Communist Party. To follow, there is a chapter about the internal organization of the people's courts, which covers court divisions, court president and vice court presidents, chief judges of divisions, collegial panels and the judicial committee. According to the Chinese court system, litigants are limited to a single appeal. However, resumption of proceedings functions as a de-facto third instance. The constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees procedural principles such as the principle of public trials; but, these principles are not yet fully implemented. Further, this paper examines the rights and duties, qualifications, appointment and removal of judges, people's assessors and other court personnel. Fighting inefficiency of people's courts and judiciary corruption are most pressing challenges of the Chinese court system. Many Western observers underestimate the complexity of the Chinese situation. In a de facto one-party system, measures of Western democracies are subject to various constraints, and, accordingly, their system cannot simply be labeled as the “best practice”. Consequently, this paper calls for new approaches to reform that better take into account the Chinese social and legal situation. Reforming the financial system of people's courts, granting more financial independence to the people's courts as well as promoting legal training to judicial personnel should be the next steps.