People's courts form the judicial organs in China. The state sets up the Supreme People's Court, and all provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government establish higher people's courts that have under them intermediate and grassroots people's courts.

The Supreme People's Court is the highest judicial organ of the country. It is responsible to the NPC and its Standing Committee, and reports its work to them. The Supreme People's Court independently exercises the highest judicial power according to law and is not subject to interference by any administrative organ, social organization or individual.

According to the Constitution and statutes, the Supreme People's Court has three responsibilities: handling cases that have the greatest influence, cases of appeals against judgments and rulings of higher courts and cases it deems it should deal with; supervising the administration of justice by local people's courts and special courts at all levels, overruling wrong judgments they have made, and deciding to review a case itself or to order lower-level courts to conduct a retrial; and, giving judicial interpretations of questions concerning special applications of laws in judicial proceedings, which must be carried out throughout the country.

Work of the Last Supreme People's Court

Xiao Yang, President of the Supreme People's Court, delivered a report on the work of the Supreme People's Court to the First Session of the 10th NPC on March 11, 2003. In the five-year term of the Ninth NPC, the Supreme People's Court, under the supervision of the NPC and its Standing Committee, worked earnestly to implement the set principles of justice and efficiency for courts, fulfilling its duty and making new headway in its work.

In the five years, the Supreme People's Court closed 20,293 cases and local and special people's courts concluded 29.6 million cases, an increase of 46 percent and 22 percent respectively over the previous five-year period.

People's courts at all levels handled 2.83 million criminal cases of first instance, up 16 percent. They meted out punishments to 3.22 million criminals, up 18 percent. They also tried and closed 23.62 million civil cases of first instance, up 20 percent and investigated 26,399 foreign-related cases, an average annual increase of 4 percent.

In light of the principle of "one country, two systems" and the basic laws of the Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions, the Supreme People's Court made arrangements for the mainland and Hong Kong to deliver civil and commercial law documents on each other's entrustment and enforce the other side's arbitral rulings, and arrangements for the mainland and Macao to deliver civil and commercial law documents on each other's entrustment and claim evidence, promoting judicial cooperation between the mainland and the two special administrative regions. It also formulated the Rules on People's Courts' Acceptance of Civil Verdicts of Courts in Taiwan, giving an impetus to personnel exchanges and development of economic and trade relations across the Taiwan Straits.

In the five years, people's courts throughout the country also concluded investigation of a total of 66,757 appeals moved by procuratorial organs in light of legal supervision procedures over judicial proceedings of courts. In all, 14,956 cases with confirmative reasons were given amended judgments, 5,011 cases were returned to original courts for retrial because fresh evidence existed or because the original ruling was based on ambiguous facts, 24,797 cases were settled after the litigants reached mediation agreements on a voluntary basis or were reconciled, 20,107 cases affirmed the original verdicts, and 1,886 cases saw a withdrawal of the appeal by procuratorial organs.

The Supreme People's Court intensified judicial interpretation of laws, in an effort to guide and supervise people's courts at all levels to properly apply laws and defend the consistency of the legal system. In the five years, it formulated 170 legal interpretations, tripling that of the previous five-year period. It also overhauled and amended more than 2,000 legal interpretations and other regulatory documents that were at variance with WTO rules and China's WTO membership commitments in a timely manner, and made public 177 that had been nullified.

President of the Supreme People's Court

The president of the Supreme People's Court is elected by the NPC for a term of five years and can serve no more than two consecutive terms. The First Session of the 10th NPC re-elected Xiao Yang as president of the Supreme People's Court on March 16, 2003.