Circuit Courts Open As Satellites Of China’s Supreme People’s Court

After long preparations, the Second Circuit Court of China’s Supreme People’s Court was officially instituted in Shenyang city, Liaoning province in northeast China on 31 January. Qiang Zhou, president and chief judge of China’s Supreme People’s Court, attended and addressed the nameplate unveiling ceremony of the Second Circuit Court.

(For the story in Chinese, see here.)

As a permanent judicial organ dispatched by the Supreme People’s Court, the Second Circuit Court, situated in Shenyang city, Liaoning province, will have its circuit area cover the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang, all in northeast China.

Just three days earlier, the First Circuit Court of China’s Supreme People’s Court was inaugurated in Shenzhen city, Guangdong province in southeast China on 28 January. The court’s nameplate unveiling ceremony also witnessed president and chief judge Qiang Zhou’s attendance and speech. (For the story in Chinese, see here.)

Also as a permanent judicial organ dispatched by the Supreme People’s Court, the First Circuit Court, situated in Shenzhen city, Guangdong province, shall have its circuit area cover the two provinces of Guangdong and Hainan as well as Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, all in southeast China.

In an effort to standardise the operation of the soon-to-be-established circuit courts, the Supreme People’s Court, on 5 January endorsed, and on 28 January, released the Regulations of the Supreme People’s Court on Several Issues concerning the Hearing of Cases by the Circuit Courts.

There are thirteen articles in total. For the Regulations in Chinese, see here.

The regulations detail a circuit court’s establishment place, circuit area, institutional nature, scope of accepted cases, and procedures of submission of materials by litigants among other matters.

According to the regulations, the circuit courts will accept and hear some of the cases, totalling 11 in kind, over which the Supreme People’s Court has jurisdiction. This includes major administrative, civil and commercial cases involving two or more administrative regions among their circuit areas, respectively.

Also according to the regulations, the circuit courts, equal to the Supreme People’s Court in level of trial, shall be equipped with the judges allocated all from the Supreme People’s Court, and therefore the verdicts, rulings and decisions awarded by the circuits, will be equivalent to those being final in effect of the Supreme People’s Court, which sits at the top of the judicial hierarchy in China.

The First and Second Circuit Courts are scheduled to accept and hear cases as of 1 February, when the regulations take effect.

However, it is worth noting that intellectual property-related cases are not in the jurisdiction of the two circuit courts, and as usual, will be submitted to the Beijing-based head office of the Supreme People’s Court for adjudication.

The creation of the circuit courts can be traced back to a decision endorsed by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on 15 November 2013, which proposed that “the Supreme People’s Court set up circuit courts and have them hear major administrative, civil and commercial cases involving two or more administrative regions.”

According to an analysis by chinanews.com, the number of the circuit courts may be expected to increase to eight to10 in total in the future, including those in Shanghai city and Wuhan city of Hubei province in central China. This is expected when the First and Second Circuit Courts operate successfully and prove the feasibility and necessity of such a pioneering undertaking.

Mingjiang Liu is an editor, associate professor, and doctor of law in intellectual property with Henan University of Animal Industry & Economics in Zhengzhou city, Henan province, China, and may be reached at mjliu@pku.edu.cn.

 

Image Credits: Supreme People's Court