Supreme People's Court

The Supreme People's Court (SPC, 最高人民法院) is the apex adjudicating body of the People's Republic of China, established under Article 128 of the 1982 Constitution and governed by the Organic Law of the People's Courts (1979, comprehensively revised 2018). It sits at the top of a four-tier court hierarchy — basic, intermediate, higher and supreme people's courts — and exercises supervision over the adjudication work of all local people's courts, special courts (military, maritime, intellectual-property, financial, internet) and the higher people's courts. Crucially, the SPC is not a constitutionally independent branch in the Western separation-of-powers sense: Article 128 makes it "responsible to" and supervised by the National People's Congress (NPC) and its Standing Committee, which elect and may remove its President. Its President serves a term concurrent with the NPC (five years, maximum two consecutive terms) and ranks at the level of a vice-premier within the state hierarchy.

The SPC's functions are broader than mere appellate review. As China lacks a doctrine of binding precedent, the Court's principal law-shaping instrument is the issuance of judicial interpretations (司法解释), which are quasi-legislative and binding on lower courts under the Legislation Law and the NPCSC's 1981 resolution empowering such interpretations. Since 2010 it has also operated a Guiding Cases (指导性案例) system, requiring lower courts to "refer to" designated cases on analogous facts. The SPC hears first-instance cases of national gravity and appeals from higher courts, reviews and approves all death sentences (a power recentralised to it in 2007, having earlier been delegated to provincial courts), and administers the national court system. Its Party leadership operates through a Party group (党组), and the Court answers to the Central Political-Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, reflecting the principle that the Party leads the political-legal apparatus.

Since 2014–2015, under President Zhou Qiang (in office from 2013), the SPC established six Circuit Courts (巡回法庭) — at Shenzhen, Shenyang, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Chongqing and Xi'an — to hear major cross-regional cases and relieve "litigation in Beijing." It also launched the China International Commercial Court (CICC) in 2018 to support the Belt and Road Initiative, and three specialised Internet Courts (Hangzhou 2017, Beijing and Guangzhou 2018). As of 2026 Zhou Qiang continues as President. The SPC has driven the "smart courts" digitalisation programme and the unified China Judgments Online database, though it consistently rejects judicial review of legislation and "constitutional adjudication," reaffirming that constitutional supervision rests with the NPCSC under Article 67.

For exam purposes, the SPC features prominently in the China Political System and comparative-government segments tested in UPSC GS-II, FSOT, CSS and the Guokao. Candidates should distinguish it from the Supreme People's Procuratorate (the prosecutorial organ under Article 134), explain its subordination to the NPC versus the independence of the Indian or US Supreme Courts, and articulate the role of judicial interpretations and the death-penalty review power. Typical question angles contrast Party leadership over the judiciary with the principle of "judicial independence" and ask why China has no power of constitutional review by courts.