Chinese Law? What law? China's ongoing efforts to make legislation and regulation clear and transparent...

So, does China even have legislation or a court system? Yes, it certainly does! A common misconception is that there is no formal court system or avenue for legal recourse in China. True that it differs greatly from the civil and commonwealth court systems of most Western countries, however China has a very developed court system often described as a 'socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics'. With such a vast number of courts (~3,000), judiciary and lawyers in China, it is hard to see how a western style democratic system could ever work, or why China would want to adopt such a system.

How does it all work? Ever since the early 1980s, there has been a four tier system of courts in China consisting of the Supreme People's Court of China (SPC), and three local people's courts (high, intermediate and low) that cover both criminal and civil cases. There are 23 provinces, 4 municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing), 5 autonomous regions (Guangxi, Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Ningxia, Xinjiang) and 2 special administrative regions (Hong Kong, Macau), covering 1.4 billion people. The immense volume of provincial legislation and associated changes in both regulation and legislation have (and continue to be) a massive challenge for both local lawyers and those outside China trying to understand what this means for them.

How are the authorities handling this challenge? I have worked closely with the Supreme People's Court for a number of years and report that there is a huge push to try and make official Chinese law both understandable (through high quality translation) and transparent (through development of paid platforms to access this content practically). This is especially true for international lawyers and businesses through the launch of the Global China Law platform.

The Global China Law and China EastLaw projects are the largest digital effort the Supreme People's Court has ever undertaken to try and consolidate legal information and make it accessible, both domestically and internationally, with an estimated investment of more than USD$100m in hardware, development, and information services to modernise the China legal system. These initiatives represent a historical opportunity for understanding Chinese Law. A clear and united system of understanding legal information among China legal practitioners is yet to be established mainly due to the lack of standardised judicial systems that we usually see in other jurisdictions. Both OCL and EastLaw will set the standard of legal information in China going forward.  

Here's a screenshot of the work that we have undertaken with the Supreme People's Court as one step in assisting this digitisation of information in China:

I'm often asked how businesses and individuals can find and understand Chinese law. The simple answer, it is still quite difficult to understand these laws and regulations. As mentioned above, there is a huge volume of legislation and regulation in China, which is difficult to navigate as each province has its own set of rules and these tend to change on an ad hoc basis, sometimes with little documentation or clear guidelines to follow. Platforms such as Global China Law and EastLaw will greatly accelerate the ability for individuals, companies and legal practitioners to understand how to do business in China. However working closely with trusted partners on the ground in China is the key to success as there are no simple answers at the moment. The differences in culture are vast, miscommunication common and it is exceptionally difficult to navigate business challenges that would be hard in common cultures, let alone very different ones.

And what of the future? The Supreme People's Court is extremely focused on advancing its ability to provide information digitally and allow the court process to be more efficient and transparent. There are three key milestones that the Supreme People's Court are looking to achieve:

1. Milestone 1: establish a centralised platform for all current digital resources (achieved)
2. Milestone 2: create China’s largest sharing platform of all digital legal literature
3. Milestone 3: house top class digital legal library for court house of the world

All eyes, especially in the legal information industry, are focused on how well these projects will perform and what practical improvements to legal process these will bring.