Source Governance of Social Disputes in China

ABSTRACT

This article examines the features and limits of a new dispute resolution mechanism implemented by Chinese courts called, “Source Governance of Social Disputes” (SGSD). Differing from existing extralegal means of dispute resolution, SGSD aims to bring courts back to the center of dispute resolution by pre-emptively intervening in dispute-prone processes via technology-based mechanisms. However, this has generated two pitfalls. Although preemptive repression can be adopted by deploying digital technologies to impose mediation on people and persuade them to make compromises, such technological deployment by and large fails to resolve the root causes of social disputes. Additionally, SGSD introduces new risks of technological abuse which may coerce litigants to accept mediation instead of adjudication, causing an erosion of public confidence in the Chinese legal system and a weakening of regime legitimacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Dispute resolution
• digital technology
• Chinese legal system
• stability maintenance

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Lin Tang, Haiyan Liu, Jianke Ye, Jason Jia-Xi Wu, Trace Dodge, Xingmei Zhang, Xiyue Wang, and Zhenzhen Pan for their support for this article.

Notes

1 Su 2010; Long 2010.

2 Hu 2011.

3 Fan 2013.

4 Zhuang and Chen 2015.

5 Hu and Zheng 2016.

6 Deng and O’Brien 2013.

7 Hu et al. 2018.

8 Zheng and Hu 2020; Ong 2018.

9 Zhou and Yan 2014; O’Brien and Deng 2017.

10 Chen 2017.

11 Diamant and O’Brien 2015; Hu and Wu 2021.

12 Xu 2022.

13 Han 2011; Luo and Andreas 2016.

14 Stern et al. 2021.

15 SPC 2019a.

16 SPC 2019b.

17 Interview with Mr. Gong, the judge of H Court in W City, December 2, 2021. For confidential reasons, all the names of the interviewees in judicial and administrative organizations in this article are pseudonyms.

18 SPC 2022.

19 Xinhua Net 2022.

20 Zhang 2022.

21 Interview with Ms. Han, the judge of H Court in W City, May 2, 2021.

22 Tiberiu and Przeworski 2019; Gohdes 2020; Brayne 2020.

23 In this article, digital technologies include all types of electronic equipment and applications that use numeric code, information and communication technology, artificial intelligence (AI) engines, big data analytics, and block chain applications.

24 The “Fengqiao Experience” refers to the practice of dispute resolution created by CCP cadres and the masses in Fengqiao Town, Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province in the early 1960s. Its aim was to mobilize and rely on the masses, handle and resolve social disputes on the spot, and achieve good public security. In 1963, Mao Zedong instructed the whole country to promote the “Fengqiao experience.” For more, see Lei 2020.

25 The “Putuo Mode” is a rapid mediation approach implemented by Zhoushan City, Zhejiang Province. It relies on digital technology and widely applies the Zhejiang Dispute Resolution Code. See the Zhejiang Daily 2019.

26 The “Longshan Experience” originated in Longshan Town, Yongkang City, Zhejiang Province. It emphasizes the participation of multiple forces such as courts, government offices, and social organizations in the settlement of disputes. It attaches great importance to mediation, so as to prevent social disputes from entering litigation or escalation. See Yu 2020.

27 Legal Daily 2021.

28 Solomon 2010; Ng and He 2017.

29 Trevaskes et al. 2014.

30 “Strike Hard” campaigns were a policy of, in the words of the CCP, “striking heavy blows” at the enemies of China’s modernization. The campaigns were aimed at combating outbreaks of crime in which the three agencies of criminal justice (the public security bureau, the procuratorate, and the courts) were linked together for a specified period of time. There have been three major “Strike Hard” campaigns since 1983. For more on these, see Trevaskes 2007; Trevaskes 2010.

31 Xu 2015.

32 Huang 2006; Stephens 1992.

33 Guo 2003.

34 Holbig and Gilley 2010.

35 Liebman 2009; Zhang and Ginsburg 2019.

36 Judicial centralization reforms are aimed at enhancing judicial autonomy by transferring authority over local court personnel and finances from the local to the provincial level. See Wang 2021.

37 The “judge quota” reforms are aimed at professionalization: by removing a given percentage of judges, only the best-qualified judges will be reappointed to create a more professionalized judiciary. A key component of this reform was to reduce the level and intensity of both political and bureaucratic control over judges in adjudication and to decentralize judicial power to the rank-and-file judges, restoring individual judiciary autonomy while enhancing judicial accountability (Sun and Fu 2022).

38 The judicial accountability reforms, launched in parallel with the judicial centralization reforms, are aimed at tackling the hierarchical structure of China’s court system. The reforms are supposed to empower individual judges to decide cases with minimal interference from their superiors. See Wang 2020; He 2021.

39 Ahl and Sprick 2018; Minzner 2015.

40 Petitions (xinfang, which translates as “letters and visits”), is a system that dates back to the establishment of the PRC in 1949. It allows individual citizens to lodge complaints and grievances with the government and seek redress for wrongs, flaws, and inefficiencies. Under the petitioning system, the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration and local bureaus of letters and calls (“petitioning bureaus”) are commissioned to receive letters, calls, and visits from individuals or groups who voice their suggestions, complaints, and grievances. The officers then channel the issues to respective departments and monitor the settlement process. See Minzner 2006.

41 Moustafa 2014.

42 Huang 2010; Minzner 2011.

43 Liebman 2007.

44 Jiang and Wu 2015.

45 SPC 2017; Shi et al. 2021.

46 Papagianneas 2021.

47 Stern et al. 2021.

48 The auxiliary case-handling systems include online mediation and court investigation based on cloud technology, online trial and online litigation services, and online electronic signatures.

49 Di and Wu 2009.

50 Huang 2006; Wissler 2004.

51 Mediation organizations include mass organizations (quntuan zuzhi) such as trade unions, the All-China Women’s Federation, the Federation of Industry and Commerce, and local comprehensive administration centers.

52 When issuing a judicial ruling, a court will inform both parties that they should conscientiously perform their obligations as agreed upon in the mediation agreement. If one party refuses and fails to meet its obligations, the other party can apply to the court for enforcement.

53 Interview with Mr. Gong, a judge iof H Court in W City, July 7, 2022.

54 This also involves notification of administrative trials, providing feedback on judicial suggestions, the separation of adjudication and enforcement of non-litigation claims, auditing and evaluating court hearings, and joint investigations of major issues.

55 Xinhua Net 2021.

56 In January 2003, at the first session of the 10^th Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress, Xi Jinping, the secretary of the provincial party committee, proposed the construction of “digital Zhejiang”. And in December 2016, the economic work conference of the provincial Party committee put forward the concept and goal of “running once at most”. See Yu 2021.

57 China Chang’an Net 2021.

58 Chen and Xu 2012.

59 The researchers learned from close friends in Zhejiang judicial system that the public data provided by local courts were simply numbers catering to the assessment objectives, with the intention to exaggerate their performance.

60 See Appendix for detailed SGSD evaluation indicators.

61 A street office is an administrative organ of the sub-district of a township administrative region.

62 This refers to important political conferences or major events in the country.

63 The local government also provided a minimum amount of compensation for temporary resettlement. If the temporary resettlement fee per household was less than 675 yuan (USD$ 98) per month, local officials paid the difference.

64 Cohen 1960; Wall 1990; Ng and He 2014.

65 “Thought work” is one of the CCP’s strategies of psychological engineering and methods of revolutionary mobilization in post-Mao China. See Perry 2002; Liu 2010.

66 SPC 2020.

67 Teiwes 2018.

68 Heimer 2006.

69 Lieberthal and Oksengerg 1988; Mertha 2009.

70 Tiberiu and Lupu 2021; Menendez 2020; Sherman 2021.

71 Wu 2021.

72 Rong et al. 1998.

Additional information

Funding

This article was funded by the Key Research Project of the Internet Rule of Law Research Institute (Hangzhou) in 2021.

Notes on contributors

Jieren Hu

Jieren Hu (胡洁人) is a professor in the Law School at Hangzhou City University. Her research focuses on dispute resolution and social governance in urban China. She can be reached at [email protected].

Ying Wu

Ying Wu (吴瀛), corresponding author, is a doctoral candidate at the KoGuan School of Law, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. She is also a China-US scholar at Harvard Law School. Her research focuses on critical legal studies, law and political economy, and state-society relations. She can be contacted at [email protected].