Copyright 2014 by Stanford University

Guiding Cases AnalyticsTM

指导性案例分析TM

Dr. Mei Gechlik

Founder and Director, China Guiding Cases Project

Issue No. 1 (February 2014)

Guiding Cases AnalyticsTM

analyzes trends in the Guiding Cases selected and released by

China’s Supreme People’s Court and identifies important issues for further study. Expected to be

an essential supplement to the qualitative analysis of cases, Guiding Cases AnalyticsTM

will help

deepen our understanding of China’s court system and case law.

指导性案例分析TM对中国最高人民法院所挑选、公布的指导性案例的发展趋势作出分析，

并确定值得进一步研究的重要课题。指导性案例分析TM有望成为案件定性分析的重要补

充，有助于加深我们对中国法院系统和案例法的理解。

* * *

Article 1 of the Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning Work on Guiding Cases

(the “Provisions”), promulgated on November 26, 2010, provides:

“The Supreme People’s Court shall determine and uniformly release as Guiding

Cases those cases that have the effect of guiding adjudication and enforcement

work in courts throughout the country.”

Article 2 of the Provisions lists the following requirements:

“The Guiding Cases referred to in this set of Provisions mean the rulings and

judgments that have taken legal effect and which are cases that meet the following

conditions:

(i) are of widespread concern in society;

(ii) legal provisions are of relatively general nature;

(iii) are of a typical nature;

(iv) are difficult, complicated, or of new types; [or]

(v) other cases having a guiding effect.”

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Since 2011, the Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) has issued six batches of Guiding Cases

(“GCs”).

Chart 1: Number of GCs Issued per Quarter

Chart 2: Number of GCs by Laws/Regulations Covered

Article 4 of the Provisions provides:

“Any adjudication unit of the Supreme People’s Court may recommend to the

Guiding Cases Work Office any ruling or judgment that is made by the Supreme

People’s Court or local people’s courts at any level and that has taken legal effect,

so long as such ruling or judgment is deemed by the said unit to meet the

requirements set out in Article 2 of this set of Provisions.

Any Higher People’s Court or the Military Court of the People’s Liberation Army

may, following discussion and decision by the adjudication committee of the said

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court, recommend to the Guiding Cases Work Office of the Supreme People’s

Court any ruling or judgment that is made by the said court or by a people’s court

in its jurisdiction and that has taken legal effect, so long as such ruling or

judgment is deemed by the said court to meet the requirements set out in Article 2

of this set of Provisions.

Any Intermediate People’s Court or Basic People’s Court may, following

discussion and decision by the adjudication committee of the said court, report to

the Higher People’s court level by level and suggest that the Higher People’s

Court recommend to the Guiding Cases Work Office of the Supreme People’s

Court any ruling or judgment that is made by the said court and that has taken

legal effect, so long as such ruling or judgment is deemed by the said court to

meet the requirements set out in Article 2 of this set of Provisions.”

Each GC is a summary prepared by the SPC to report the original ruling/judgment rendered by a

court that can be from any level of China’s four-tier court system.

Chart 3: Number of SPC, Higher, Intermediate, and Basic Level People’s Court

Rulings/Judgments Released as GCs

Chart 4: Number of Rulings/Judgments Rendered by the Courts in the Following

Provinces/Provincial-Level Municipalities Released as GCs

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The SPC has chosen relatively more rulings/judgments from Jiangsu and Shanghai for release as

GCs (see Chart 4). Is this a coincidence? Does this indicate that courts in Jiangsu and Shanghai

display a higher level of competence and thus their rulings/judgments are more likely to be

selected?

The SPC has consistently used the format of dividing each GC into six parts:

(i) “Keywords” (to list keywords that indicate the nature of the dispute etc.);

(ii) “Main Points of the Adjudication” (to include general principles prepared by the

SPC that it expects other courts to refer to);

(iii) “Related Legal Rule(s)” (to list the legal rule(s) considered in the GC);

(iv) “Basic Facts of the Case” (to summarize the most important facts of the GC);

(v) “Results of the Adjudication” (to report the outcomes of legal proceedings); and

(vi) “Reasons for the Adjudication” (to summarize the reasons for the final

ruling/judgment).

Chart 5: Number of Chinese Characters per GC

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Chart 6: Relative Length of Each of the Six Parts of GCs

On average, a GC has approximately 1,500 Chinese characters (see Chart 5), 40% of which are

found in the “Basic Facts of the Case” part, with another 40% in the “Reasons for the

Adjudication” part (see Chart 6). This shows that the SPC provides more details in these two

parts. This is welcome. Detailed facts allow judges to better distinguish cases. More reasons

provided in GCs will encourage other courts to follow the SPC’s practice. One of the areas in

China’s court system that most needs improvement is the explanations for rulings/judgments:

courts have generally placed less emphasis on explaining the reasons for their decisions.

Of all the GCs, Guiding Case No. 20 and Guiding Case No. 23 provide the most detailed

reasons. The “Reasons for the Adjudication” part in Guiding Case No. 20 accounts for

approximately 65% of the total number of characters found in that case, and the corresponding

percentage is 75% for Guiding Case No. 23. These two GCs are, respectively, China’s first on

patent law and first on food safety law. Is the provision of more detailed reasons related to

China’s focus on improving the patent system to promote the implementation of its innovation

policy and on the population’s concern about food safety?

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Chart 7: Time Elapsed Between Original Rulings/Judgments and GCs

Most cases selected for release as GCs are about two years old, but the SPC selected two cases

that were about five years old (see Chart 7). These two cases are Guiding Case No. 6 and

Guiding Case No. 17. Were these two cases chosen because their “Main Points of the

Adjudication” are of special importance?

Guiding Case No. 6:

HUANG Zefu, HE Boqiong, and HE Yi v. The Jintang Administration for Industry and

Commerce of Chengdu Municipality, Sichuan Province, An Administrative Penalty Case

“When an administrative organ, in making an administrative penalty decision to

confiscate a relatively large amount of property involved in a case, fails to inform

the parties involved of their rights to request a hearing, or fails to hold a hearing

in accordance with law, the people’s court should, in accordance with law, decide

that the administrative penalty violates legally established procedure.”

Guiding Case No. 17:

ZHANG Li v. Beijing Heli Huatong Automobile Service Co., Ltd., A Sale and Purchase Contract Dispute

“1. Where cars are purchased [to meet] consumption needs in family life, fraud

disputes occurring in [these purchases] may be handled pursuant to the Law of the

People’s Republic of China on Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests.

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2. [If] a car seller promises to sell a new car that has not been used or repaired to a

consumer, [but] after purchase, the consumer discovers that the car has been used

or repaired, [and] the seller cannot prove that he1 has performed his duty of

disclosure and that [the performance] has been acknowledged by the consumer,

[this] constitutes sales fraud. [If] the consumer demands that the seller

compensate his losses in accordance with the Law on Protection of Consumer

Rights and Interests, the people’s court should offer support.”

1 Translators’ note: “he” and “his” as used herein are, unless the context indicates otherwise, gender-neutral

terms that also refer to “she”, “her”, and “it”.