The apex of the four-tier people's court system. It is not a constitutional court: under Article 67 of the Constitution the power to interpret the Constitution and statutes belongs to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, and no Chinese court may set aside a statute. The SPC's practical influence runs instead through judicial interpretations (司法解释), which bind lower courts, and through the guiding-case system introduced in 2010. Six Circuit Courts sit in Shenzhen, Shenyang, Nanjing, Zhengzhou, Chongqing and Xi'an; these are branches of the SPC itself rather than a separate tier. Hong Kong and Macau lie outside this hierarchy entirely, each retaining its own final appellate court under its Basic Law.
How the court is constituted
- Tier
- supreme
- Court type
- Apex court of the ordinary hierarchy
- Jurisdiction
- Final appeals and retrials from the higher people's courts, mandatory review of all death sentences, trial of cases of national significance, and the issuing of judicial interpretations binding on all lower courts.
- Seat
- Beijing
- Established
- 1949
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