Changes in the Judicial System Which Cannot be Ignored

• Author: Editorial of Guanming Daily

On December 20, the Supreme People’s Court issued its first batch of 4 guiding cases, which is a major change to the pre-existing judicial system. China’s current legal and judicial system demonstrates characteristics of a “continental legal system”, despite the fact that China’s current system originates from different sources, including China’s own legal tradition and the foreign legal systems which China learnt from during its large-scale legislative process.

The regulations stated that when adjudicating similar cases a trial judge “should” refer to the guiding cases and may base his ruling on the reasoning shown in the...