China's is a civil law system, and one important consequence
is that decisions made by one Chinese court are not binding on
other Chinese courts. Nonetheless, precedent can be a strong factor
when arguing cases, especially so in a society where courts want to
avoid being proved wrong. One major challenge for lawyers, so far,
has been to find relevant precedent cases. While technically
public, there has been no public database to search judgments. This
has also made it more difficult to critique courts for judgments
where the legal basis is not so strong.
The Provisions on People's Courts Release of Judgments
on the Internet, issued by the Supreme People's Court on
21 November 2013, promises to change this as of 1 January 2013.
Replacing earlier rules that were clearly not very effective, the
Provisions instruct all courts to appoint special organizations to
which they should pass their judgments within 7 days from their
becoming effective. These organizations are then
