In order to deepen the comprehensive reform of the judicial responsibility system, improve the case retrieval system, and further unify the application of laws, the Supreme People's Court issued the guiding opinions on unifying the application of laws and strengthening case retrieval (Trial). The opinions will be put on trial from July 31, 2020.

There are 14 articles in the opinions, which define the application scope, search subject and platform, search scope and method, case identification and comparison, search report or description, result application, judge response, legal dispute resolution, trial case database construction, etc. The opinions fully considers the current situation of China's current legal system, positions case retrieval as a specific system with Chinese characteristics under the written law system, and emphasizes the reference of judges to guiding cases and other cases, in order to realize the unified application of the law.

The opinions adheres to the established direction of judicial reform, not only delegate power to the presiding judge and the collegial panel, but also strengthen the supervision and management of cases, so as to achieve the combination of decentralization and supervision. At the same time, attention should be paid to the connection with the existing relevant reform measures, including the trial supervision and management system of the president of the court, the conference system of professional presiding judges, the case guidance system and the reform of the judicial committee system.

According to the spirit of the reform of the judicial responsibility system, the opinions defines four situations in which case retrieval should be carried out: first, those to be submitted to the professional (presiding) judge meeting or the judicial committee for discussion; Second, there is a lack of clear Adjudication Rules or no unified Adjudication Rules have been formed; Thirdly, the presidents and chief judges of divisions search cases according to the jurisdiction of trial supervision and management; Fourth, other cases that need to be searched.

Combined with the actual judicial work, the opinions pointed out that the scope of case retrieval generally includes: guiding cases issued by the Supreme People's court; Typical cases issued by the Supreme People's court and cases with effective judgments; Reference cases issued by the higher people's Court of the province (autonomous region or municipality directly under the central government) and cases whose judgments have taken effect; Cases in which the decisions of the people's court at the next higher level and this court have taken effect. In addition to guiding cases, priority shall be given to the retrieval of cases or cases in recent three years; If a similar case has been retrieved in the previous sequence, it can no longer be retrieved.

In order to give full play to the retrieval function of similar cases and unify the application of laws, the opinions requires that if the retrieved similar cases are guiding cases, the people's courts shall make decisions by reference; If other cases are retrieved, the people's court may serve as a reference for making decisions. If there are inconsistencies in the application of law in the retrieved cases, the people's court may, in accordance with the measures of the Supreme People's court for the implementation of the dispute resolution mechanism on the application of law and other provisions, resolve them through the dispute resolution mechanism on the application of law. At the same time, the opinions clearly states that if the public prosecution organ, the parties to the case and their defenders, agents ad litem, etc. submit a guiding case as a reason for prosecution (prosecution) and defense, the people's court shall respond in the reasoning of the judgment documents whether to refer to it and explain the reasons; If other cases are submitted as the reasons for prosecution (prosecution) and defense, the people's court may respond by means of interpretation, etc.

In addition, the Opinions also put forward requirements for retrieval descriptions or reports of similar cases. First, for cases that should be subject to case retrieval, the handling judge is required to explain the case retrieval in the collegial panel review, professional (presiding) judge meeting discussion and trial report, or prepare a special case retrieval report. Second, it is emphasized that the retrieval description or report of category cases should include the retrieval subject, time, platform, method, results, key points of category case judgment and the focus of disputes of pending cases, and analyze and explain whether to refer to or refer to category cases and other results, so as to be objective, comprehensive and accurate.

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