As early as 1985 when the Standing Committee of the NPC passed the resolution to establish the maritime courts, the resolution also gave the maritime courts with the authority to adjudicate all maritime cases involving carriage by sea and river at first instance. In 1989, the SPC promulgated the Rule on the Jurisdiction of the Maritime Courts, which further defined the jurisdiction of the maritime courts.The scope of the maritime courts’ jurisdiction is later confirmed, detailed, and expended by the SMPL. In addition to what the CPL has provided for territorial jurisdiction, the SMPL has furthermore provided for free choice of Chinese jurisdiction by the parties in dispute, thus, even though the dispute does not occur within Chinese territory, a Chinese maritime court should have jurisdiction over the dispute if the written agreement of the parties so provided. For any issues not covered by the SMPL, the CPL will apply. The SMPL covers the main issues frequently involved in maritime litigation including jurisdiction, arrest of ships, injunctions, preservation of evidence, security, and service of court documents, trial and other related procedures. The SMPL also provides a comprehensive set of rules designed to meet the special requirements of maritime litigation.
　
　III. Judicial Interpretations for
　the Civil Procedure Law
　China adopted the Continental European Civil Law System but does not formally recognize the precedent authority of case law. But the Chinese statutes are generally abstract and vague. In addition, it normally takes a long time to amend statutes. Therefore, in 1981, the NPC Standing Committee passed a resolution to authorize the SPC to interpret questions involving the specific application
　　　　 ] of laws and decrees in trials.According to this resolution, it can only be construed that the NPC only authorizes the SPC to interpret specific issues derived from concrete cases regarding application of laws and regulations. Inherently, courts should have power to apply law or interpret law on specific cases. However, since 1981, the SPC has not only issued legal opinions upon specific requests from lower courts but also proactively promulgated hundreds of judicial interpretations dealing with broader and presumed legal issues of applying laws without any specific requests from lower courts.
　Because the power of approving a judicial interpretation resides with the Adjudicating Committee of the SPC and the committee only consists of about ten members, if a judicial interpretation dealing with substantive law and constitutes an act of legislature, it seems too lucrative for the SPC to issue such judicial interpretations to supplement the legislature. Many Chinese jurists also criticize such practice. Regardless the legitimacy of the SPC’s power to issue judicial interpretations, such a kind of interpretations forms a very important source of Chinese law.
　As discussed in the brief history of Chinese civil procedure law above, before the existence of the Chinese civil procedure law, in 1957, the SPC formulated and promulgated the Adjudication Procedure of Civil Cases, and in 1979, promulgated the Provisional Regulations on the Procedure System for the People’s Courts to Adjudicate Civil Cases, which lasted until the CPL of 1991 was promulgated. In 1984, two years after the provisional CPL of 1982 was promulgated, the SPC issued two rules regarding the applications of the provisional CPL. They were the Opinion on Several Issues of Enforcing the Provisional Civil Procedure Law and the Answers to Several Issues Regarding How to Apply the Provisional Civil Procedure Law in the Adjudication of Economic Disputes.On July 14, 1992, a little bit more than a year after the CPL of 1991 was promulgated, the SPC issued the Opinion on Several Issues Regarding the Application of the CPL of the PRC. This Opinion serves as the second most important legal instrument for the Chinese civil procedure next to the CPL of 1991 (the full-text of this Opinion was translated and included in this book).
　Besides the judicial opinions directly interpreting the CPL, the SPC also issues many rules to deal with more general issues that CPL fails to address. Such as, the Several Rules on Evidence in Civil Procedures,the Rule on the Review of Civil Case Files Conducted by Litigation Representatives,and the Several Rules on the Application of the Summary Procedure in the Adjudication of Civil Cases 1991 (the full-text of these three rules were translated and included in this book).These rules serve as court rules to supplement the CPL and the Opinion of the SPC on Several Issues Regarding the Application of the CPL. For example, China still does not have a piece of legislation on evidence so the Several Rules of the SPC on Evidence in Civil Procedures becomes very important to know how evidence is collected, evaluated, presented, examined, cross-examined, and admitted in civil proceedings.
　After running a combined search of the subject as “civil procedure” and the promulgator as “the Supreme People’s Court” on the Database of Chinese National Laws, Administrative Regulations, Rules, and Judicial Interpretation at http://law.Chinalawinfo.com, as of July 9, 2005, it retrieved 650 pieces of the judicial interpretations and opinions issued by the SPC related to the civil procedure rules since 1949.It can be seen that there is a vast of the legal instruments issued by the SPC. Therefore, it is also very important to study these instruments when trying to learn the Chinese civil procedure law.
　
　VI. Conclusion
　Although the Chinese civil procedure law has its distinctive characteristics that are unfamiliar to the most of Western jurists, it can be seen that the significance in some of these characteristics have been diminishing. As China continues to deepen its judicial reform and polish its legislation and judicial interpretations on the civil procedure law and relevant court rules, it is optimism to foresee Chinese judges would become more independent from administrative influences, more ethical in adjudicating civil cases, and more competent in rendering fair judgments; the Chinese people’s mediation system and the mediation conducted by judges would continue to play a very important role in the reconciliation of civil disputes while more and more Chinese would submit their civil cases to the people’s courts for trials; and the inferences of individual lives from the state and employers would become minimums. The Chinese judicial system has developed a very sophisticated and relatively independent regime for adjudicating maritime disputes. Therefore, when dealing with maritime disputes, not only substantive law on maritime but also a different set of maritime procedure law and rules need to be consulted. Finally, the court rules formulated and issued by the SPC have filled some gapes and patched some holes for the Chinese civil procedure system although the CPL has not been amended 1991. Therefore, no one should overlook the judicial interpretations and opinions of the SPC.

第 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] 页 共[8]页