最高人民法院裁判、司法解释的法律地位

The legal status of decisions and judicial interpretations of the Supreme Court of China

The decisions and the legislative interpretations of judicial interpretations of the Supreme Court of China can be considered as a part of Mainland China’s customary law, and carried by decisions and judicial interpretations. Customary law is the very source of its normal force and they are supposed to be an informal source of the law for they have the required characteristics for substantiating customary law. Accordingly, the legislative judicial interpretations and decisions of the Supreme Court that are qualified to be promulgated in the Gazette of the Supreme Court should be standardized by the requisites of customary law and have the quality supposed to be universally fair. Cao Shibing is a senior judge of the Supreme Court of China majoring in civil law, and he was awarded the doctorate of law by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Till now, he has published an amount of academic works, for instance, On Anti-monopoly Law (1996), Resolve of the Problems in the Suretyship Law of China and its Prospect (2001), On Insolvency Law of China (2003), and his translated book in Chinese (1998) —The Death of Contract (originally written by Grant Gilmore in 1995).