Case Filing and Determination of the Adjudicatory Personnel

Abstract

AbstractAfter determining the competent court, the plaintiff can bring the lawsuit by submitting the statement of claim, necessary evidence, and other formality documents to the court. However, it is noteworthy that foreign parties, especially foreign companies and other institutions, need to prepare a series of formality documents as required by the Chinese court to participate in litigation, which can sometimes be somewhat cumbersome. Therefore, it is necessary to spare sufficient time to get ready. Upon receipt of the plaintiff’s materials, the Chinese court shall examine them to limited extent, and file the case upon satisfaction of certain statutory conditions. To facilitate foreign parties to submit filing materials online, the SPC establishes an Internet platform for foreign parties and streamlines the case-filing procedures from several aspects. Due to some concerns, however, we would advise that foreign organizations prepare paper materials in the traditional way, and seek help from Chinese lawyers for case filing. After the case filing, Chinese courts generally determine the judge(s) for a case through the computer-based random allocation, but under special circumstances, Chinese courts will directly appoint the judge(s) for a case. There is no jury system in China, and the facts and legal issues involved in the case should be decided by the collegial panel or the sole judge. Nevertheless, Chinese citizens can participate in the trial by joining the collegial panel as people’s assessors. The power of people’s assessors is generally the same as that of judges, but in some cases, they only have the right to vote on the finding of facts.