Supreme People's Procuratorate Provisions on Judicial Interpretation Work

Notice on the Printing and Distribution of the "Supreme People's Procuratorate Regulations On Judicial Interpretation Work"

People's procuratorates of all provinces, autonomous regions and directly governed municipalities; military procuratorates and the people's procuratorate for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps:

The "Supreme People's Procuratorate Regulations On Judicial Interpretation Work", having been revised by the 45th Meeting of the 12th Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on December 16, 2015, is hereby printed and distributed to you. Please faithfully implement and execute in combination with actual practices.

Supreme People's Procuratorate

31 December 2015

Supreme People's Procuratorate Regulations On Judicial Interpretation Work

(Passed by the 53rd Meeting of the 10th Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on April 18, 2006 Revised by the 45th Meeting of the 12th Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate on December 16, 2015)

Article 1: These Regulations are formulated on the basis of "The Legislation Law of the PRC", the "PRC Law on the Supervision By The Standing Committees of the People's Congresses At All Levels" and the "NPC Standing Committee Resolution on Strengthening Judicial Interpretation Work", combined with actual procuratorial working conditions, in order to strengthen and standardize judicial interpretation work, to unify the application standards of laws, and to safeguard judicial fairness.

Article 2: Questions on the specific application of law in the people's procuratorates' procuratorial work can only be answered by the Supreme People's Procuratorate with judicial interpretations.

Article 3: Judicial interpretations shall be based on laws and must not violate or surpass the provisions of laws.

Article 4: Judicial interpretation work shall actively receive the supervision by the National People's Congress and its Standing Committee.

Where, during the course of researching the formulation of judicial interpretations, the specific meaning of the provisions of law need to be further clarified or new situations emerged after the enactment of laws and the basis of the application of laws shall be clarified, the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall submit requests for legislative interpretations or bills to enact or amend relevant laws to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

Article 5: Judicial interpretations formulated and published by the Supreme People's Procuratorate have legal force. Where people's procuratorates need to cite laws and judicial interpretations in indictments, procuratorial counter-appeals, procuratorial suggestions and other legal documents, they shall cite laws before citing judicial interpretations.

Article 6: Judicial interpretations are to adopt forms such as "Interpretation", "Rules", "Provisions", "Reply", and "Decision" and are to be uniformly edited and assigned a Supreme People's Procuratorate Judicial Interpretation number.

For judicial interpretations drafted on how to specifically apply certain laws or how to apply laws towards certain kinds of cases or certain kinds of problems during procuratorial work, employ the "Interpretation" or "Rules" forms.

For judicial interpretations such as case handling standards or opinions that are necessary for procuratorial work, employ the form of "Provisions."

For judicial interpretations formulated in response to the requests for instruction of provincial people's procuratorates (including PLA Military Procuratorate, the People's Procuratorate for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps) regarding questions on the specific application of laws during procuratorial work, adopt the form of "Reply."

For the revision or revocation of judicial interpretations, adopt the form of "Decision."

Article 7: The Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate specifically undertakes the relevant matters of judicial interpretation work, and is uniformly in charge of the project establishment, drafting, examination, coordination, cleaning up and other work of judicial interpretations. Other relevant operational units of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, local people's procuratorates and special people's procuratorates shall cooperate with the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate to perform well judicial interpretation work.

Article 8: The Supreme People's Procuratorate formulates the annual judicial interpretation work plan at the beginning of each year.

The Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate is charge of drafting judicial interpretation work plans, in consultation with provincial people's procuratorates and the relevant operational units of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Judicial interpretation work plans shall be submitted to the Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate for deliberation and approval. According the practical needs of procuratorial work, additions or adjustments can be made to the judicial interpretation work plans as decided by the Procuratorial Committee or the Procurator-General.

Article 9: The formulation of judicial interpretations follows the following procedure:

(1) Setting up projects (立项);

(2) Surveying, researching, and drafting judicial interpretation opinion drafts;

(3) Expounding and proving [feasibility] (论证) and soliciting the opinions of relevant sectors, putting forward judicial interpretation deliberation drafts;

(4) Submitting to the deputy procurator-general in charge for examination, reporting to the procurator-general to decide to submit to the Procuratorial Committee for deliberation;

(5) Deliberated and passed by the Procuratorial Committee;

(6) Checking and approving the draft (核稿);

(7) Signing and promulgating;

(8) Filing with the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for recording.

Article 10: Projects shall be initiated to formulate judicial interpretations. Sources for the initiation of projects for the Supreme People's Procuratorate to formulate judicial interpretation include:

(1) Decisions and requests of the Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate to formulate judicial interpretations;

(2) The Supreme People's Procuratorate's leaders' instructions to formulate judicial interpretations;

(3) Proposals to formulate judicial interpretations put forward by the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and other relevant operational units;

(4) Requests, reports or suggestions to formulate judicial interpretations submitted by provincial people's procuratorates to the Supreme People's Procuratorate;

(5) Proposals or motions to formulate judicial interpretations put forward by delegates to the National People's Congress or members of the National Committee of the CPPCC;

(6) Proposals to formulate judicial interpretations put forward by relevant departments, social groups or other organizations and citizens;

(7) Other situations that the Supreme People's Procuratorate deem necessary to formulate judicial interpretations.

Article 11: Provincial people's procuratorates' requests for instruction, reports, or suggestions on the formulation of judicial interpretations submitted to the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall be centrally processed by their respective legal policy research offices, and shall be deliberated and decided by their respective procuratorial committees. In [their] requests for instructions, reports, or suggestions on the formulation of judicial interpretations submitted to the Supreme People's Procuratorate, [the provincial people's procuratorates] shall specify the questions requested to be interpreted and the opinions of their respective procuratorial committees, and shall append relevant cases and materials.

Where people's procuratorates below the provincial level deem it necessary to formulate judicial interpretations, they shall report to the provincial people's procuratorates level by level, which are to decide after examination whether to submit requests for instructions, reports, or suggestions to the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Article 12: Decisions and demands of the Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate concerning the formulation of judicial interpretations are directly established as projects by the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate. For other instructions, requests for instruction, reports, suggestions or motions on formulating judicial interpretations, the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate submits opinions on whether to establish projections, and after the Deputy Procurator-General approves, submits to the Procurator-General to decide.

Where projects establishments are decided, they shall be included in the judicial interpretation work plans.

Article 13: Where the projects of the judicial interpretations are already established, the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall put forward judicial interpretation opinion draft within one month after the establishment of the projects. For provincial procuratorates' requests for instruction, reports, or suggestions on questions of the specific application of law submitted to the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall research to draft judicial interpretation opinion drafts within fifteen days after the establishment of projects.

For important, difficult, or complex judicial interpretation projects or where the circumstances are special, the time within which to research and to propose judicial interpretation opinion drafts can be extended as appropriate.

Article 14: With decision of the Deputy Procurator-General in charge or of the Procurator-General, the relevant operational units of the Supreme People's Procuratorate can be in charge of the drafting work of relevant judicial interpretations, and of proposing judicial interpretation opinion drafts.

With the approval of the Deputy Procurator-General in charge, the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate can entrust local people's procuratorates, relevant institutions of higher education, or scientific research institutions to research and to propose judicial interpretation suggestion drafts.

Article 15: Judicial interpretation opinion drafts shall be sent to the relevant special committees of the National People's Congress or the relevant working bodies of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to solicit comments.

Judicial interpretation opinion drafts shall solicit the opinions of relevant institutions, local people's procuratorates, special people's procuratorates, the relevant operational units of the Supreme People's Procuratorate and other relevant experts and scholars.

For judicial interpretations involving the immediate interests of the people, as decided by the Procurator-General, they can publicly solicit the opinions of all sectors of the society and of the people on the Internet, in the newspaper or through other media.

Article 16: The Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate or other relevant operational units that have been approved to undertake relevant judicial interpretations shall, after having solicited opinions, revise and perfect judicial interpretation opinion drafts, put forward judicial interpretation deliberation drafts and draft explanations. After examining [these documents], the Deputy Procurator-General in charge submit them to the Procurator-General, who decides to submit them to the Procuratorial Committee for deliberation. For relatively important judicial interpretations, [the Office or other units] can solicit the opinions of relevant members of the Procuratorial Committee, before submitting the interpretations to the Procuratorial Committee for deliberation.

Article 17: Judicial interpretation deliberation drafts shall include the following content:

(1) The source and background of project establishment;

(2) The process of research, drafting, and revision;

(3) Situations on the solicitation of opinions of relevant institutions, local people's procuratorates, special people's procuratorates, the relevant operational units of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, relevant experts and scholars, or all sectors of the society;

(4) Per-article explanation of judicial interpretation deliberation drafts, including the opinions of all sectors, focuses of controversies, and the opinions and reasons of the departments in charge.

Article 18: Judicial interpretations promulgated by the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall be deliberated and passed by the Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Where after deliberation the Procuratorial Committee deems the conditions immature to formulate a judicial interpretation, [it] can decide to further research, expound, and prove [the feasibility] or revoke the project establishment.

Article 19: For the judicial interpretation deliberation drafts deliberated and passed by the Procuratorial Committee of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the departments in charge shall revise and perfect [the drafts] according to the deliberation opinions of the Procuratorial Committee. After the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate checks and approves the drafts, submit to the Deputy Procurator-General in charge for examination, to be signed and promulgated by the Procurator-General.

Article 20: Supreme People's Procuratorate's judicial interpretations are publicly released on the Gazette of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the Procuratorate Daily, and on the website of the Supreme People's Procuratorate in the form of Supreme People's Procuratorate Announcements.

Article 21: The effective dates of the judicial interpretations shall be the dates when the Supreme People's Procuratorate release announcements, unless otherwise stipulated by the judicial interpretations.

Article 22: Judicial interpretations shall be submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for recording within thirty days of promulgation.

Article 23: The Supreme People's Procuratorate shall conduct inspections and supervisions of the circumstances under which local people's procuratorates and special people's procuratorates enforce judicial interpretations and formulate normative documents.

The Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate can organize evaluations of the enforcement situations and implementation results of relevant judicial interpretations. Evaluation situations shall be reported to the deputy procurators-general in charge or the procurator-general, and can be reported to the Procuratorial Committee when necessary.

Article 24: After laws are enacted, amended, or abolished, the content of the relevant judicial interpretations that contravene the provisions of laws become ineffective automatically; the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall amend or abolish relevant judicial interpretations in a timely manner.

Where older judicial interpretation are not longer applicable in whole or in part after the formulation of new judicial interpretations, [such situations] shall be clarified in new judicial interpretations.

Article 25: The Supreme People's Procuratorate shall clean up [清理] judicial interpretations at regular intervals and compile the judicial interpretations currently in effect. The clearing up of judicial interpretations is to be handled with reference to the relevant provisions of the formulation procedure of judicial interpretations.

Situations of the clearing up of judicial interpretations shall be promptly reported to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

Article 26: For problems of the specific application of laws concerning both procuratorial work and adjudicatory work at the same time, the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall consult and request the Supreme People's Court to jointly formulate judicial interpretations; Where the Supreme People's Court consults and requests the Supreme People's Procuratorate to jointly formulate judicial interpretations, the Supreme People's Procuratorate shall jointly research and formulate.

Where the judicial interpretations jointly formulated by the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court need to be revised, supplemented or revoked, [the Supreme People's Procuratorate] shall consult with the Supreme People's Court.

Article 27: Where there are fundamental differences between the Supreme People's Procuratorate's and the Supreme People's Court's judicial interpretations, they shall settle through negotiation. Where [the difference] cannot be settled through negotiation, they shall submit to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress for [legislative] interpretation or decision.

Article 28: These Regulations become effective on January 12, 2016. The "Supreme People's Procuratorate Regulations on Judicial Interpretation Work" (Gao Jian Yan Fa Zi [2006] No. 4) are abolished at the same time.