SoSe20_The Chinese Guiding Cases System

Welcome to the website of the Seminar

The Chinese Guiding Cases System

Visiting Prof. Hui Huang (School of Transnational Law of Peking University)

&

Prof. Dr. Moritz Bälz (Goethe University)

This course is designed as a three-day intensive seminar, which aims（1）to introduce China’s so-called Guiding Cases System including its generation and development, reflect on its functional design and critically assess its status quo；（2）to compare the Chinese guiding cases system with German practices regarding leading cases (Leitentscheidungen), and (3) to engage into a case-based Sino-German comparative law exercises.
Initiated by the Supreme People’s Court of China in 2010, the so-called guiding cases system aims at summarizing adjudication experiences, unifying the application of law, enhancing adjudication quality, and safeguarding judicial impartiality. While it has attracted widespread attention even beyond China, including a major project at Stanford University, its status quo also shows many problems.
The seminar consists of two parts each comprising also presentations by students:
In the first part of our class, we shall look into the guiding cases system as a measure of judicial reform and try to assess it from a comparative perspective using also insights from German practices regarding leading cases. Prof. Huang will give an introductory lecture on the system, which will be complemented by student presentations on methodological topics.
The second part will consist of exercises in comparative case law. Using Chinese guiding cases mostly form civil law which have been translated into English by the aforementioned Stanford Project, student presentations analyze a case and its outcome under Chinese law, contrast with this how it would likely be decided under German law, and reflect on commonalities and differences observed.
Student presentations are later to be handed in also as written paper.
This course is taught in English. Chinese skills are not required (but, of course, welcome).

Date of block sessions 23-25 June, 2020

The seminar will now take place as a virtual format via Zoom!

Should you be unable to participate in the seminar, please let me know at your earliest convenience (baelz@jur.uni-frankfurt.de).

As regards the oral presentations, we shall share any power point presentation you prepare via Zoom while you are presenting. To facilitate preparations please send your presentation by Friday 19 June midnight to baelz@jur.uni-frankfurt.de. I shall also upload them for everybody on OLAT. If you prefer to distribute a handout instead, please send me a pdf at the same date. As announced earlier, presentations should last between 15 and a maximum of 20 minutes. Our schedule is tight. Please, aim to be focused and effective.

Credit: The course can be taken as seminar in the concentrations (Schwerpunkte) Internationalisierung und Europäisierung or Grundlagen des Rechts. It alternatively – or even in addition – counts as course in foreign legal terminology (fremdsprachige Rechtskenntnisse). Please, do not forget to register with "Prüfungsamt" according to the general rules.

Grading will be based 1/3 on the oral performance (presentation of 15- 20 minutes (2/9) and participation in class discussions (1/9)) and 2/3 on the written paper (15 pages excl. references etc.).

Deadline for submission of written papers is 30 August 2020 (searchable pdf by email to baelz@jur.uni-frankfurt.de). The Corona rules of the university require to extent this deadline by the period the library was closed plus 9 weeks. This means you are entitled to hand in your papers by 30 December. Nevertheless, you are strongly encouraged to finalize and hand in your paper after the seminar while your memory of our discussions is fresh.

Notice for students from Modern East Asian Studies (MEAS): This course is open for MEAS students as (legal) elective. Exam registration with Philprom via QIS/LSF is required. Requirements for credit as above, but grading will be based exclusively on the written paper (as the Study Rules do not allow for considering the oral performance).
Exam registration: 10.06.2020 – 19.06.2020 via QIS. Withdrawal from examination: until 22.12.2020 via QIS.
Submission of term paper: 30.12.2020. Repeat submission of term paper: 30.01.2021 (According to Corona rules of the university new deadline is 30 January 2021).