The Supreme People's Court ("SPC") has recently issued the Guiding Opinions on Further Improving the Appointment-based Mediation Mechanism (the "Opinions").
The Opinions state that any dispute over interests related to people's livelihood may be resolved through mediation under the appointed mediators, unless it is inappropriate to mediate under the law, and call for giving play to the exemplary role of category-based mediation, raising the quality of specialized mediation, actively exploring pre-litigation appraisal and evaluation, constantly optimizing the links between mediation and litigation regarding the required documents and procedures, making thorough the reporting system for concluded cases, and continuously improving the judicial confirmation system. In addition, the Opinions stress the need to maximize the regulating effects of legal fees and ensure the rights of the parties concerned to engage in the mediation process on good faith and exercise their right to litigation in a proper manner. Also, efforts should be made to strengthen the management of the mediator name list and supervisory guidance on appointment-based mediation, and improve platform development and data utilization. Moreover, the Opinions call for efforts to fully utilize data resources on the big data management and service platform for people's courts and on the mediation platform for people's courts, improve the appointment-based mediation case management system, utilize the monitoring and early warning functions of judicial big data, and refine the dispute risk judgment mechanism, so as to provide references for Party committees and governments during the decision-making process.