NPCSC Session Watch: Historical Nihilism Crackdown, People’s Assessor System Reform, State Council Reorganization & Shanghai Financial Court

The Council of Chairmen decided on Tuesday that the 13th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) will convene its second session from April 25 to 27. The three-day session will review draft laws and decisions involving increased protection for Communist “heroes and martyrs,” reform of China’s people’s assessor (or lay judge) system, implementation of the State Council reorganization plan, and the Shanghai Financial Court. The Council also approved the NPCSC’s 2018 legislative and oversight plans; we will publish our coverage and analysis after they are released in the coming weeks.

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27th Session Watch Pt. 2: NPCSC Concludes Session with New Laws, Decisions

Earlier this afternoon, at the closing meeting of its 27th Session, the 12th NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) voted on and approved a series of legislative bills as well as decisions on personnel and reform of the judicial system. The following is a quick review of the actions taken by the NPCSC today.

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Reviewing the Supreme People’s Court Report on the People’s Assessor System Reform: Pt. 2

This post continues Part 1 with a summary of the second half of the Supreme People’s Court’s (SPC’s) midterm report on pilot reform of the people’s assessor system—authorized by the NPC Standing Committee in April 2015. This part of the SPC’s report concerns the problems the Court identified with the pilot projects as well as its suggestions for further advancing the reform. In the days since we published Part 1, we have learned that the NPCSC is poised to renew the pilot projects (at least for another year, we think). One therefore could expect the SPC to focus on the difficulties discussed below in the next phase of the reform.

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27th Session Watch Pt. 1: NPCSC to Consider Securities Law Revision, Renew People’s Assessor System Reform

As we have predicted earlier, the Council of Chairmen met today to set the dates and agenda for this month’s NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) session. It decided that the 27th Session of the 12th NPCSC will take place from April 24 to 27. As usual, this post summarizes the official press release of the Council’s meeting, along with other pertinent information.

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Reviewing the Supreme People’s Court Report on the People’s Assessor System Reform: Pt. 1

In April 2015, the NPC Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed a decision authorizing the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) to conduct pilot programs to reform the people’s assessor system in 50 courts—at both basic and intermediate level—in ten listed provinces. The pilots formally began on April 28, 2015 to run for a period of two years, in accordance with the NPCSC’s authorization. In June 2016, months before we started this Blog, the SPC submitted to the NPCSC a midterm report on the status of the pilot programs, as required by the authorization. As the authorization is set to expire later this month, we think it fitting at this moment to review what the SPC has written about the reform efforts in its 2016 report.

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