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Two bound volumes of the gazette, A Complete Compilation of Gazette of the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China: 1985-1994 (People’s Court Press, 1995), and its continuation, 1995-1999 (People’s Court Press, 2000), are alternative sources for locating judicial explanations.
General Compilation
Those judicial interpretation prior to 1985 can be traced with another publication entitled, A Collected Edition of Judicial Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China: 1949.10-1993.6 (People’s Court Press, 1994). This historical collection, compiled by the research department of the Supreme People’s Court, contains seven parts involving: general provisions, criminal law, criminal Procedure law, civil law (including general principles of civil law, marriage law, succession law and copyright law), economic law, maritime law, civil procedure law, and administrative procedure law. It collects about 2,200 judicial interpretations issued solely by the Supreme People’s Court or jointly with other central state organs from October 1949 to June 1993, and has been considered as a very useful archival source on searching for the judicial interpretations of early days.
In addition to the official publications mentioned above, a commercial collection deserving mention is: A Complete Collection of Judicial Interpretations of New China: 1949.10 - 1990.6 (China Procuratorial Press, 1990) and its enlarged edition, 1990.6.-1992.6. This collection, dividing judicial documents into several parts covering criminal and civil affairs, criminal and civil procedures, administrative law, lawyer and notarization, judiciary involving foreign interests, records a great many judicial documents issued by the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and other normative documents such as legislative interpretation, law, policy, circular, reply and so forth adopted or promulgated by NPC, the State Council and Ministries and Commissions concerned. Furthermore, there is an English list of the legislative and judicial documents passed or issued from June 1990 to June 1992, in the end of enlarged edition which will prove useful to foreign readers.
Subject Collection
In recent years, the relevant adjudication divisions of the Supreme People’s Court have also compiled some judicial handbooks subject to their trial jurisdiction.
Administrative Trial
Handbook of Administrative Trial (People’s Court Press, 1987-1999, yearly). This is a major serial publication concerning administrative procedure published during the period 1987-1999. Compiled jointly by the Research Department and the Administrative Division of the Supreme People’s Court, it includes usually three or four score of laws passed by the NPC and its standing committee, administrative regulations enacted by the State Council and committees and ministries under it, and judicial interpretations made by the Supreme People’s Court regarding to administrative proceedings. It groups them into twenty or so subjects, including: finance, statistics, tourism, industrial and commercial administration, customs, taxation, audit, social securities, technical supervision, education, culture, journalism and publication, national defense, science and technology, public security, civil affairs, justice, and environmental protection. The first volume cumulated the laws, regulations and judicial interpretations promulgated or issued during the period 1979-1986.
A Collection of Judicial Interpretations on Administrative Proceedings (Jincheng Press, 2001) and Reference to Administrative Regulations and Judicial Review (Law Press, 2000-date, yearly) These two subject compilations on administrative trials are edited by the Administrative Division of the Supreme People’s Court. The former, covering the period 1982 to 2000, compiles nearly 200 judicial documents of the Supreme People’s Court relating to administrative procedure into one volume, and arranges them into a dozen subjects, which is very convenient for readers to search for a judicial interpretation on a specific topic. The latter, commencingin 2000 in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the implementation of Administrative Procedural Law of the PRC, is somewhat of an academic work which is composed usually of several parts embracing many of the latest materials on administrative trial, such as new laws and regulations, new judicial interpretations, theses on understanding and application of judicial interpretation, statistical data, and court decisions, etc. It merits mention here as the theses in this publication are well worth reading for their academic nature which can help readers to understand the meanings of judicial interpretation more clearly.
Civil Trial
Civil trial is the main work of court’s justice for civil case makes up 90% of the total cases and the civil adjudication personnel also makes up 90% of the whole judicial personnel. In order to fit in with the needs of developing the socialist market economy and of accession to the WTO, the Supreme People’s Court underwent in 2000 an important institutional reform which adjusts the institutions and functions of divisions of civil, economic, intellectual property, transport and communications and brought them into one category of civil trial. Thus a big pattern of civil justice has been set up since then.
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