Court system of the People's Republic of China

The judicial branch is one of three branches of the government, not the state structure, in the People's Republic of China, along with the executive and legislative branches. Strictly speaking, it refers to the activities of the People's Court system. According to the Constitution law of China, China does not adopt the "separation of power" system as in modern democratic countries, the People's court does not enjoy a separate and independent power, but subject to the control of the People's Assembly.

Constitutionally, the court system is intended to exercise judicial power independently and free of interference from administrative organs, public organizations, and individuals. Yet the constitution simultaneously emphasizes the principle of the "leadership of the Communist Party."

According to the Constitution of the People's Republic of China of 1982 and the Organic Law of the People's Courts that went into effect on January 1, 1980, the Chinese courts are divided into a four-level court system:

The court system is paralleled by a hierarchy of prosecuting offices called people's procuratorates, the highest being the Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Hong Kong and Macau have separate court systems due to their historical status as British and Portuguese colonies, respectively.

Between the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957 and the legal reforms of 1979, the courts—viewed by the leftists as troublesome and unreliable—played only a small role in the judicial system. Most of their functions were handled by other party or government organs. In 1979, however, the National People's Congress began the process of restoring the judicial system. The world was able to see an early example of this reinstituted system in action in the showcase trial of the Gang of Four and six other members of the "Lin-Jiang clique" from November 1980 to January 1981 (see the Four Modernizations). The trial, which was publicized to show that China had restored a legal system that made all citizens equal before the law, actually appeared to many foreign observers to be more a political than a legal exercise. Nevertheless, it was intended to show that China was committed to restoring a judicial system.

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