The Supreme People's Court (SPC) released the second batch of typical cases on the implementation of the Civil Code during a press briefing on Jan 12. The SPC's Vice-president Yang Wanming, and permanent member of its judicial committee (vice-minister level) Liu Guixiang attended the briefing.

According to Yang, the 16 typical cases released at the briefing were selected from courts nationwide, aiming to better guide courts in correctly applying the Civil Code. Promoting socialist core values is one of the common features of the cases, he added.

"It is an important starting point for the people's courts to deepen the implementation of the Civil Code by setting up benchmarks and clarifying guidance through typical cases", said Yang, adding that the SPC will further intensify work on case studying, focus on hot issues concerning people's livelihoods and highlight the value orientation of the Civil Code, in a bid to demonstrate the significance of the Civil Code in safeguarding the people's rights and interests.

The cases involve infringement of personal and proprietary rights in various fields in marital and domestic life and economic exchanges, which reflects the comprehensive protection of rights offered by the Civil Code, as well as the people-centered approach practiced by courts nationwide.

Some of the cases concern corporate real rights, creditor's rights, reputation rights and intellectual property rights, with a focus on the accurate application of new systems and rules related to market trading, which gave full play to the Civil Code's role in safeguarding transaction security and maintaining market order.

From January 1, 2021 to November 30, 2022, people's courts at all levels concluded 650,000 first-instance cases of real rights disputes, 20.27 million on contract disputes, 330,000 on personality rights disputes, 920,000 on intellectual property and competition disputes, and 310,000 on environmental and resource disputes.

The new systems and rules in the Civil Code have resulted in more efficient and powerful social governance through trials. According to Liu, the people's courts have tried a number of cases involving newly-added rules in the Civil Code, which concern the protection of heroes' personal interests, residence rights, property service contracts, factoring contracts, family style clauses, risk taking, good-faith riding, and throwing objects at high altitude, and achieved good social impact. Judicial big data shows that from January 2021 to November 2022, the number of first-instance judgment documents on the hero protection clause of the Civil Code was 679, the number for residence rights was 772, and the number for good-will riding was 2,478.

Since the enactment of the Civil Code, the top court has released 19 judicial interpretations, which have played a due role in unifying the scale of judgment and ensuring the correct application of the Civil Code. At the social level, it has also played a positive role in clarifying disputes over the application of law and stabilizing social expectations, according to Liu.