People's Court Case Selection 2005 Issue No. 2 (Total No. 52)

Author: Supreme People's Court of China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Cultivating Case Awareness, Unveiling Judicial Wisdom, Building a Chinese Case Guidance System
Shen Degong
In recent years, our judges have increasingly realized that, in addition to writing research articles and research reports, compiling cases has become the most important medium for showcasing judicial wisdom and expressing legal insights. Writing papers requires certain conditions—hard work and time being essential, as well as academic thinking as a fundamental skill. However, judges are not scholars, researchers, or freelance writers. To cope with the growing caseload, most judges spend their days buried in case files. Therefore, without special interest and strong will, it is difficult for them to switch roles to write academic papers. However, adjudicating cases, their primary duty, provides another way for judges to contribute to the rule of law—through writing excellent judgments and compiling guiding cases. Practice has shown that this stage for judges is vast. The tree of life is evergreen, and cases are its concrete manifestation. In the legal empire, cases are the (link) between statutes and reality, serving as carriers of legal wisdom and embodying the spirit of the rule of law. With the advancement of judicial reform, compiling cases has expanded beyond explaining and interpreting specific legal issues to encompass regulation, demonstration, reference, and guidance.
During the development of the case guidance system, different terms have been used, such as reference cases, typical cases, important cases, new types of cases, judicial precedents, judgments, and guiding cases, among others. These terms themselves reflect the evolving role of cases. Moreover, the value of cases has attracted the attention of academia, with an increasing number of scholars studying law from the perspective of cases, yielding more and more research outcomes. Thus, the past decade has been a critical period for China's rule-of-law development and a significant stage for the vigorous growth of case studies. These major changes are reflected in at least four aspects:
First, the institutional development of case guidance has made a fundamental leap. China's case guidance practice has existed for a long time, but achieving true institutionalization has been realized through two major leaps. The first leap was the 1999 Five-Year Reform Plan. Article 14 of the Plan stipulated: "Starting from 2000, typical cases discussed and decided by the Supreme People's Court's Judicial Committee on legal issues shall be published for reference by lower courts when adjudicating similar cases." Although the scope of reference case selection was relatively narrow at the time, the Plan first established the reference to typical cases as a system, marking a summary and elevation of case development over the past two decades, with profound significance. The second leap was the Supreme People's Court's Second Five-Year Reform Plan. The Second Five-Year Plan established a standardized case guidance system, requiring the Supreme People's Court to play a role in unifying legal application standards, guiding lower courts' adjudications, and legal interpretation, thereby further consolidating the case guidance system's position in China's judicial system.
The second major change is that the collection, compilation, publication, and development of cases have become an important branch of applied legal research. The volume of cases published in the Supreme People's Court Bulletin has gradually increased; the Supreme People's Court's various departments publish some complex and difficult cases they have adjudicated through their own publications; the Judicial Case Selection has established its position as a specialized publication for cases; the Compendium of Judicial Cases is a successful example of combining academic and judicial practice to develop case resources; the Judicial Case Collection of the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China compiles all judgments of the Supreme People's Court, serving as important materials for guidance, reference, learning, and research. Additionally, almost all higher people's courts compile and publish typical cases in their regions, and many intermediate and primary people's courts also collect and compile cases of significance for learning and reference. Many legal journals have also set up special columns for case analysis. These research outcomes have laid a necessary foundation for establishing the case guidance system.
The third major change is that the practice of lower courts using typical cases to guide adjudications has become increasingly rich, and the practical role of cases has gradually strengthened. Courts such as the Jiangsu Higher People's Court, Tianjin Higher People's Court, Henan Higher People's Court, Fujian Higher People's Court, Kunming Intermediate People's Court, and Zhengzhou Intermediate People's Court not only use typical cases as basic resources and materials for applied legal research but also emphasize their exemplary role, establishing the guiding function of typical cases as references for lower courts and other courts when adjudicating similar cases. Different models of case guidance systems have been tried and established in various regions, granting typical cases certain guiding and reference functions, cultivating case awareness among judges and lawyers. Judges have begun to collect relevant cases, lawyers have started using similar cases in court as arguments, and legal researchers have begun to explore legal theories and methods embedded in cases to promote legal development.
The fourth major change is that case research has been greatly deepened compared to the past. Cases twenty years ago focused more on "popularizing law" and publicity, while today's cases emphasize legal interpretation and the legal principles they contain. Through in-depth development, the superficial and superficial understanding of cases has been broken, revealing their role in legal interpretation, discovering new legal rules, developing legal theories, enriching applied legal theory, perfecting legal department rules, and standardizing practical practices. It can be said that in-depth development has given cases a new life and has also become an important condition for establishing the case guidance system.
These major changes have provided favorable conditions and opportunities for further improving case work and establishing China's case guidance system. At the same time, we should also note that there are some problems in the current case work:
First, the authority of cases still needs to be improved. Any case has a natural exemplary effect, but how to select those cases with correct legal application, close legal interpretation to legislative intentions, and proper legal method application, and to determine their guiding role through appropriate procedures, remains an urgent issue to address.
Second, the selection procedures and methods for cases still need to be standardized. Although the current "blossoming of all paths" in case selection is not necessarily bad, it can easily lead to chaos and result in uneven quality of cases. Therefore, efforts should be made to integrate the various forces of case selection, establish strict selection standards, set up specialized selection institutions, and standardize selection procedures.
Third, the depth of case development still needs to be improved. Although some courts and research institutions have already conducted some in-depth development of cases, overall, the level of case development is still low and remains in a "primary stage." Case work in various regions also urgently needs to be summarized, improved, and elevated.
Fourth, the case awareness of the legal community still needs to be strengthened. Although the legal community has begun to pay attention to and use cases to some extent, it still cannot meet the needs of unifying legal systems and legal interpretation. Therefore, cultivating strong case awareness has become one of the most important tasks at present.
Edited by the Institute of Applied Law of the Supreme People's Court of China, Judicial Case Selection has been published for 50 issues since its inception in 1992, featuring nearly 3,000 cases. Over the past 13 years, Judicial Case Selection has relied on courts at all levels across the country and their judges, researchers, and other staff to interpret the law through cases, explain legal principles, clarify doubts, and promptly reflect the various legal issues encountered in judicial work. It has demonstrated judges' methods for solving legal problems, showcased judicial wisdom, provided important references for adjudications, and contributed to the development of many important legal theories.
Over the past 13 years, the selection work of Judicial Case Selection has gradually formed a rigorous organizational system, an orderly submission mechanism, prudent selection criteria, and a unique analytical approach, ensuring the quality of the selected cases and earning the favor and respect of judges and other legal professionals at all levels of courts across the country. It has established a brand reputation among countless case compilation publications.
In response to the requirements of the current situation, the Supreme People's Court has decided to reform the selection work of Judicial Case Selection starting from 2005, issuing the Supreme People's Court's Notice on Strengthening Applied Legal Research (No. 64) and the Supreme People's Court Office's Notice on Strengthening the Editing Work of Judicial Case Selection (No. 275), proposing higher requirements for case selection and placing greater expectations on Judicial Case Selection. To this end, we must redouble our efforts to make Judicial Case Selection even better and enable it to play a greater role in building socialism.