Judicial Information Source of the People’s Republic of China: A Survey
翟建雄
【关键词】Judicial Interpretation, Legal Information Source
【全文】
Zhai Jianxiong is an associate research librarian in law in the reference department, the National Library of China, where he is responsible for responding to the requests from the national legislature, government, judiciary and citizens. He has a Bachelor of laws degree and has been active in introducing China’s legal information to the world. In recent years, he has published several English language articles on the legal literature of China in journals abroad, such as the National Library of China and Its Legislative Reference Service in the IFLA Publication 83: Parliamentary Libraries and Information Services of Asia and the Pacific; Legal Literature in the P. R. China: An Introduction in the Reference Librarian, Number 60, 1998; and Tax Legislation of the People’s Republic of China and Its Information Sources in the Revenue Law Journal, Volume 8, 1998. In this guide, he will give a brief introduction to the sources of judicial information in China, with a focus on judicial interpretation, an important source of Chinese law.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Judicial Structures
Court System
Procuratorate System
Judicial Interpretation
Sources of Judicial Information
The Supreme Peoples Court
Official Gazette
General Compilation
Subject Collection
Administrative Trial
Civil Trial
Criminal Trial
State Compensation
Annotated Edition
The Supreme Peoples Procuratorate
Official Gazette
Law Reports
Official Publication
English Version
Commercial Publication
Reference Sources
Judicial Yearbooks
Historical Judicial Materials
Local Judicial Chronicles
Online Sources
Court Website
Procuratorial Website
Commercial Sites
Introduction
Judicial Structures
Court System
The Constitution of China provides that the People’s Courts are the judicial organs of the state and exercise the judicial powers. Soon after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the courts system was established throughout the country. In 1954, at the first session of the first National People’s Congress (NPC), the Organic Law of the People’s Courts was adopted which provided systematically the nature, functions, organization and activities of the courts. Now the court system of China consists of:
The Supreme People’s Court;
The higher courts instituted at the levels of provinces and autonomous regions as well as municipalities directly under the Central Government;
The intermediate courts established at levels of prefectures (including autonomous prefectures), provincial capital (including cities under direct control of the provincial or autonomous region government), relatively big cities and within the municipalities directly under the Central Government;
The basic courts established at county or autonomous county levels and in urban districts;
Military courts;
Maritime courts;
Railway transport courts.
Every court is, except the special courts (military, maritime, and railway transport courts), usually composed of several institutions such as criminal division, civil division, intellectual property division and enforcement division. In recent years the courts of the whole country handles a total of about 6 million cases annually. Two brief statistical tables relating to the cases received and settled by the people’s courts at various levels are listed below:
The People’s Procuratorate of the People’s Republic of China is the supervisory organ of law. In September 1954, the first NPC at its initial session adopted the first Constitution of China and the Organic Law of the People’s Procuratorate.Both provided for the establishment of a Supreme People’s Procuratorate, local procuratorates at various levels and special procuratorates. Thereafter, the procuratorial institutions at both central and local levels were gradually established. Currently, the national procuratorate system includes:
