A local people's court is a

court A court is an institution, often a government entity, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between Party (law), parties and Administration of justice, administer justice in Civil law (common law), civil, Criminal law, criminal, an ...

at local level of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. According to the ''Organic Law of the People's Courts'', the local people's courts includes: *

High people's court A high people's court or higher people's court (高级人民法院) is the highest local court in the People's Republic of China. In each province, it is subject to the "People's Congress". According to the '' Organic Law of the People's Courts ...

s *

Intermediate people's court An intermediate people's court () is the second-lowest local people's court in China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, i ...

s *

Primary people's court A primary people's court () is a lowest level court in the Courts of General Jurisdiction in the People's Republic of China. According to the '' Organic Law of the People's Courts of the People's Republic of China'', the basic people's courts handl ...

s During the 1940s and 1950s, people's courts were village meetings in which peasants would engage in airing grievances about their landlords. These were known as 诉苦会 ''sùkǔhuì'' “speak bitterness meetings” and were often organized by

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

militants for the denunciation of landlords. They have been described as a form of

kangaroo court Kangaroo court is an informal pejorative term for a court that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides, and is typically convened ad hoc. A kangaroo court ma ...

. The Organic Law of the People's Courts of the People's Republic of China () was passed in 1954 for the first time. After the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, this law was re-passed by the Fifth

National People's Congress The National People's Congress (NPC) is the highest organ of state power of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The NPC is the only branch of government in China, and per the principle of unified power, all state organs from the Sta ...

on July 1, 1979, and amended by the

Standing Committee of the National People's Congress The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPCSC) is the permanent body of the National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature of the People's Republic of China. It exercises the powers of the NPC when it is not in s ...

on September 2, 1983. This law has three chapters and 41 articles. It prescribes that the Chinese courts include the

Supreme People's Court The Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China (SPC) is the highest court of the People's Republic of China. It hears appeals of cases from the high people's courts and is the trial court for cases about matters of national ...

local people's courts A local people's court is a court at local level of the People's Republic of China. According to the ''Organic Law of the People's Courts'', the local people's courts includes: * High people's courts * Intermediate people's courts * Primary pe ...

, and other special courts.

References

Courts in China {{China-poli-stub

See also

References