Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305

5:45pm – 6:15pm – Reception
6:15pm – 7:45pm – Seminar

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Since its adoption of the Detailed Implementing Rules on the “Provisions of the Supreme People’s Court Concerning Work on Case Guidance” in May 2015, the Supreme People’s Court of China has given Chinese judges more instruction on how to refer to Guiding Cases in subsequent, similar cases. As a result, the number of subsequent cases referring to Guiding Cases has grown rapidly. This exciting development has, however, led to more questions, including:

• Given that only Guiding Cases can be cited in subsequent, similar cases, what should judges do when they are presented with both Guiding Cases and other types of cases, such as model cases and other representative cases selected by the Supreme People’s Court and the provincial higher level courts?
• If a Guiding Case is found to have limitations, can something be done to make that Guiding Case lose its guiding effect?
• As of December 31, 2015, the China Guiding Cases Project has found 181 subsequent cases referring to Guiding Cases. In many cases, judges refused to consider Guiding Cases on the ground that China, a civil law country, should not cite cases in judgments. Is this correct?

To address the above questions, we are honored to have the following speakers share their practical insights:

LE Yuxin
Former Visiting Judge, Shanghai Higher People’s Court
Former Deputy Judge, Shanghai Changning District Court
Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow, Washington College of Law, American University
How are Cases Used in China?: Experience from Shanghai

DING Xiaoyu
Judge, Tianjin Binhai New Area People’s Court
Ph.D. (law) candidate, University of International Business and Economics
Visiting Scholar, Columbia Law School
How are Guiding Cases Selected?: Experience from Tianjin

HOU Yangkun
Associate Professor, School of Law, Beijing Institute of Technology
Visiting Scholar, Stanford Law School
Protection of Inventions: Limitations of Guiding Case No. 20 and Related Developments

Amanda Yung-Ching Chang
Judge, Hsinchu District Court, Taiwan
Visiting Scholar, Stanford Law School
The Role of Precedents in Taiwan’s Criminal Courts

Laurent Cohen-Tanugi
Founder and Managing Partner, Laurent Cohen-Tanugi Avocats, Paris
Visiting Lecturer, Stanford Law School
Case Law in a Legal System Without Binding Precedent: The French Example

The event will be moderated by Dr. Mei Gechlik, Founder and Director of the China Guiding Cases Project. We thank our event sponsors, including Alston & Bird, LLP, the Center for East Asian Studies of Stanford University, and the Fu Tak Iam Foundation Limited for their kind and generous support.