The Reform and Perfection of China's Civil Litigation Level System: The Establishment of the Third Trial System as the Main

Abstract

China has been implementing a civil litigation hierarchy based on a system of two trials with final adjudication, supplemented by a trial supervision procedure of retrial, with a view to enabling our civil litigation process to better achieve the established value objectives; over time, this long-running procedural system has revealed serious problems in terms of institutional framework and specific rules. In recent years, the Supreme People's Court has issued a series of relevant policy documents to amend and adjust our civil litigation hierarchy in many aspects, including the criteria for accepting cases, retrial procedures and the elevated jurisdiction system. At present, our civil litigation level system is no longer purely a two-trial final adjudication system, but is closer to the substantive three-trial final adjudication system.