Supreme People's Court to Strengthen Handling of Citizen Petitions by Trial Judges

August 14, 2006

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) announced at a November 2 court conference that it will require all Chinese courts to establish systems of responding to citizen petitions and resolving citizen complaints following judicial decisions, according to a November 3 China Court article.

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) announced at a November 2 court conference that it will require all Chinese courts to establish systems of responding to citizen petitions and resolving citizen complaints following judicial decisions, according to a November 3 China Court article.

Under the new system, trial judges who issue judicial decisions will be responsible for responding to parties who visit the court and raise questions or complaints about the verdict. Trial judges will work with docketing tribunal (li'an) judges to resolve complaints. The trial judges' record of handling such complaints will be made part of their regular performance reviews, along with their trial records.

Court authorities plan to implement this system in part to increase trial judges' awareness of and willingness to respond to citizen petitions, according to the article. The article specifically notes the need to increase the "xinfang awareness" of trial judges. Xinfang (letters and visits) offices exist in a number of government departments, including the courts, to handle citizen petitions for redress. (For more information on the xinfang system, see the Access to Justice sections of the Commission's 2004 and 2005 Annual Report.) The China Court article notes that courts have encountered several problems in responding to citizen petitions. Docketing tribunal judges, who generally are responsible for responding to citizen petitions, lack knowledge as to the facts of petitioners' cases. In contrast, trial judges see their role as to decide the legal cases before them, rather than to help end the citizen petitions that may result.

Parts of the SPC decision parallel new national xinfang regulations that the State Council issued earlier in 2005. Under the 2005 Regulations on Letters and Visits, local governments must schedule “leadership reception days” to allow petitioners to approach local officials directly. The new regulations also instruct local governments to assess how officials resolve citizen petitions as part of their annual performance evaluations. These similarities suggest that the central government plans to implement a common set of reforms relating to citizen petitions in both the courts and local governments.

The SPC reforms may not strengthen the Chinese judiciary in the long term, however. These reforms may encourage Chinese parties to lawsuits to resort to post-decision petitioning rather than appeals to reverse judicial verdicts, increase pressure on Chinese trial judges to alter verdicts to satisfy persistent petitioners, and weaken judicial finality. Similar incentives in the xinfang system more generally appear to be causing a rapid increase in the number of citizen petitions and a rise in mass petitions, as noted in the Access to Justice section of the Commission's 2004 and 2005 Annual Report.