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Supreme People’s Court Issues Judicial Interpretations to Improve Enforcement and Promote Non-Litigation Dispute Resolutions - 最高院司法解释改善执行和推进非讼争端解决方式
September 10, 2009
The Supreme People’s Court (“SPC”) issued three judicial interpretations in July of this year, which establish certain mechanisms to improve the civil procedure system and encourage the utilization of non-litigation dispute resolutions.
• Mechanisms to Be Established to Promote Enforcement
According to the Several Opinions on Further Strengthening and Regulating the Enforcement released on July 17, 2009, and effective as of the same date, special departments or systems shall be established to better regulate enforcement as follows:
(1) Courts at various levels shall establish an enforcement bureau respectively.
(2) Higher people’s courts, intermediate people’s courts and certain district people’s courts shall each set up an enforcement command center under their respective enforcement bureaus to organize enforcement and provide centralized management.
(3) Courts at various levels shall establish a special department respectively to deal with complaints regarding enforcement.
(4) Courts at various levels shall establish an enforcement joint meeting system for clearing local circulars or other documents that impede the enforcement or resolving of difficulties that arose during enforcement.
• Judicial Recognition Mechanism
The Several Opinions on the Establishment and Improvement of Dispute Resolution Mechanism for the Connection of Litigation and Non-litigation (“Opinions”) released on July 24, 2009, and effective as of the same date, establishes a new judicial recognition mechanism, under which a mediation agreement can be recognized for its validity by application to a competent court with jurisdiction. Once recognized by the court, a party can apply directly for compulsory enforcement of the recognized mediation agreement if the other party refuses to perform accordingly. This judicial recognition application shall be jointly submitted by both parties. A labor dispute mediation agreement can also be recognized through the judicial recognition process for its validity, directly, without applying for labor arbitration.
• Utilization of Non-Litigation Dispute Resolution
The Opinions require promoting the utilization of non-litigation dispute resolutions, such as arbitration, people’s mediation, mediation by administrative authorities, mediation conducted by an arbitration committee for parties who have not signed an arbitration agreement, as well as mediation by trade associations, social organization, enterprises or units, etc.
The Opinions also encourage mediation during the process of litigation. The court can appoint an administrative authority, a people’s mediation organization, a commercial mediation organization, a trade association or other organizations to conduct a mediation based on application or the court’s authority, before a court officially accepts a case. After the acceptance of the case, the court can entrust one of the above organizations to conduct a mediation based on parties’ agreement or the court’s own discretion when regarded necessary.
The utilization of mediation has also been emphasized in the Guiding Opinions on Better Handling the Trial of Real Estate Disputes under Current Circumstances ("Guiding Opinions") issued on July 9, 2009, and effective as of the same date. The Guiding Opinions require that the court utilize mediation if a developer fails to deliver real estate due to temporary fund shortages when dealing with lease contract disputes, mortgage contract disputes and other real estate disputes.