Commentator:"The people's courts shall strive to ensure that fairness and justice can be felt in every single case."It is General Secretary Xi Jinping's ardent hope for judicial work as well as people's ardent expectation for judicial justice.The people's courts have borne in mind the people-centered judicial philosophy and effectively strengthened the judicial protection of human rights.At the beginning of 2023,four key tasks were identified at the meeting of the presidents of national high courts:the first was to focus on resolving the urgent,difficult,and worrying problems of the people and to strengthen the judicial protection of people's livelihoods.The second was to safeguard national security and social stability so as to enhance the foundation of social development.The third was to serve the national strategy and facilitate high-standard opening-up by opti-mizing the business environment and preventing and resolving major financial risks while protecting the ecological environment with the strictest system and the most stringent rule of law.The fourth was to better the Internet judicial model with Chinese characteristics and create a higher level of"digital justice"by implementing the"three major rules"of online litigation,online mediation and online operation of the people's courts,as well as the Opin-ions of the Supreme People'ss Court on Strengthening the Judicial Application of Blockchain and Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Regulating and Strengthening the Judicial Application of Artificial Intelligence.On March 7,2023,Zhou Qiang,then President of the Supreme People's Court,put for-ward in his work report to the National People's Congress a four-point proposal on the work of the people's courts in 2023,the second of which was to"better coordinate development and security,and serve high-level security and high-quality development in accordance with law".Its content included strengthening the protection of personal information,optimiz-ing the rule of law environment to promote the development and growth of the private economy,fully implementing the principle of equal protection,resolutely protecting the lawful property rights and interests of private enterprises and entrepreneurs,enhancing the judicial protection of intellectual property rights and improving the judicial policies on the digital economy so as to serve high-quality development with high-quality justice,ensure the judicial protection of property rights and intellectual property rights,increase the effi-ciency of contract fulfillment and stimulate innovation vitality.The third point was to"adhere to the people-centered philosophy of development and administer justice impar-tially for the benefit of the people".The people's courts should listen to the voices of the masses,adhere to a problem-oriented approach,effectively guarantee the legitimate rights and interests of women,children,the elderly and the disabled,strengthen the protection of labor rights and interests and the protection of workers in new forms of employment,effec-tively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and promote the improve-ment of the State compensation system and public interest litigation system so as to develop the judicial protection of human rights.Over the past year,the people's courts have faithfully fulfilled the responsibilities entrusted to them by the Constitution and the law while focusing on the theme of"justice and efficiency",adhering to a proactive approach to the administration of justice and serving the overall interests of the country and administering justice for people's benefits in a profound and practical manner.The following significant progress has been made in the judicial pro-tection of human rights.First,major and vicious crimes have been severely punished in accordance with law and people's sense of security has been effectively enhanced.Second,the Supreme People's Court has formulated 27 recommendations on optimizing the rule of law environment and promoting the development of the private economy,which integrated the principle of equal protection under the law into judicial policies and case-by-case han-dling,promoted the growth of the private economy in accordance with law,and helped enter-prises to get out of difficult situations.Third,intellectual property rights have been strictly protected in accordance with law with punitive damages applied,thus serving innovation-driven development.Fourth,cases concerning the environment and resources have been handled pursuant to law,facilitating the building of a beautiful China and entrenching the idea of harmony between man and nature.Fifth,the people's courts have handled cases close to people with care,hearing cases involving people's livelihoods such as education,employment,old-age care and food safety in accordance with law.Typical cases have been issued,which clarified the rules for installing lifts in old neighborhoods and solved the prob-lems faced by the elderly and the disabled in getting up and down the stairs.The protection of the legal rights and interests of over-age workers has been strengthened,sending the mes-sage and ensuring that"the elderly can have a sense of worthiness".The standardized and orderly development of the labor market has been promoted.Sixth,the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment have been safeguarded.The people's courts would determine,on the basis of actual employment,whether or not a labor relationship exists between a delivery person and a platform enterprise,thus eliminating some enterprises'"camouflage"for circumventing the responsibility for employment through chain outsourcing of labor services or inducing employees to register as self-employed laborers.Moreover,"providing substantive labor"and"obviously occupying time"have been identified as the criteria for determining"invisible overtime work"online,so that online work would be valued and offline rest guaranteed.The people's courts have strongly supported the defense of rights pursuant to law by stepping up the efforts to adjudicate cases concerning unpaid wages and to enforce the decisions in order to help migrant workers to recover their hard-earned money.Seventh,two sets of typical cases of anti-domestic violence have been released,and judicial regulations have been imposed on domestic violence against minors in the name of"love",and on acts such as snatching and hiding of minor children after divorce.It has also been made clear that those who encounter violence in love or cohabitation can apply for the protective order.Eighth,cyberviolence has been punished in accordance with law.The people's courts have introduced judicial policies in conjunction with the relevant units to severely punish the malicious initiators and organizers of cyberviolence,as well as the repeat offenders.Ninth,the people's courts have paid all-round attention and care to the healthy growth of children and adolescents with zero tolerance for crimes against minors while making great efforts to educate and rehabilitate delinquent minors.The cases selected and compiled in this issue epitomize the efforts of the people's courts in strengthening the judicial protection of human rights in 2023.In order to ensure the authority and authenticity of the cases,we have selected,based on the significance of the cases revealed in the work report of the Supreme People's Court in 2024,"the Top Ten Cases of Judicial Protection of Human Rights in China in 2023"from sources including the Guiding Cases(13 cases in 2 sets),Typical Cases(513 cases in 38 sets),Top 10 Cases and Candidate Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023(45 cases)and Top Ten Cases of the People's Courts in 2023 issued by the Supreme People's Court from May 2023 to March 2024,while benchmarking them against the key points of National Human Rights Action Plan(2021-2025).Experts in relevant fields have been invited to comment on these cases.The first case is taken from Case No.4 of the Top 10 Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023.It is the first case in China to clarify the issue of"invisible over-time work"in the judgement as well as the first case to propose relevant criteria for the deter-mination of invisible overtime using social media such as WeChat.The work report of the Supreme People's Court in 2024 pointed out that this case explicitly identified"providing substantive labor"and"obviously occupying time"as the criteria for determining"invisible work overtime"online,so as to ensure the earnings of online work be gained and offline rest guaranteed.The second case is taken from Candidate Case No.14 and Nominated Case No.5 of the Top 10 Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023.It is the first share-holder derivative lawsuit filed by an investor protection agency under the new regulation of Article 94 of the Securities Law of the People's Republic of China and also the first case in China where an investor protection agency subrogated the rights of the investors to recover damages from the listed company's directors,supervisors and senior management after it had been ordered to bear civil liability for securities fraud.The decision of the case success-fully prompted the controlling shareholders to compensate the company for the full amount of losses,which exerted a positive influence of deterring the"key minority"and effectively safeguarded the legitimate rights and interests of small and medium-sized investors.This case attracted wide attention from the society and was selected as one of the Top Ten Typical Cases of Investor Protection by China Securities Regulatory Commission in 2023.The third case is taken from Case No.1 of the Top Ten Influential Cases on the Fifth Anniversary of the Establishment of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court and Case No.5 of the Top 10 Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023.These two cases are the related cases of intellectual property infringement with the highest amount of compensation awarded by the people's court for the same project.In the patent case,the amount of damages was revised to RMB 120 million yuan in the second instance,the highest amount of compensation awarded concerning patent infringement since the establishment of the Intellectual Property Court of the Supreme People's Court;in the case of technical trade secrets,the amount of damages was revised to RMB 98 million yuan in the second instance,another high compensation for technical trade secret infringement after the Court awarded RMB 159 million yuan in the"vanillin"case in 2021.As for the case concerning infringement of"melamine"patent and technical trade secrets,while the infringing party was ordered to pay a compensation of RMB 218 million yuan,a comprehen-sive settlement was reached in the course of enforcement.The infringing party was granted a license to use the invention,and the right holder was eventually compensated with RMB 658 million yuan,setting a new record for intellectual property rights cases in China.These deci-sions have fully embodied the trial concept of strong protection,effective protection and equal protection in strengthening judicial protection of intellectual property rights in the new era.The fourth case is taken from Case No.8 of the Top Ten Cases of the People's Courts in 2023,which is the first infringement case involving the"virtual digital person"in China.It has clarified the attribution of performers'rights of virtual digital persons and demonstrated the value orientation of protecting the intellectual property rights of virtual digital persons in accordance with law.The fifth case is taken from Candidate Case No.33 of the Top 10 Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023.It is the first infringement case concerning face rec-ognition in public transportation in China since the implementation of the Personal Informa-tion Protection Law of the People's Republic of China.In this case,the court,through judicial advice,pushed the railroad transport enterprises to take such measures as updating websites and optimizing equipment to fully fulfill their obligations to notify passengers of the collec-tion of face information,and to protect the public's personal information and continuously optimize the operating environment of railroads under the rule of law while promoting tech-nology efficiency to maintain public safety.This has achieved the unity of political,social and legal effects.The sixth case,also known as"Tie Ma Bing He"(the username of the defendant)Case,was selected as Case No.9 of the Top 10 Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023 and Case No.1 of the Top Ten Cases of the People's Courts in 2023.In the trial of the case,the court,taking facts as the basis and the law as the guidelines,strived to take into consideration the unity of the law,reason and sentiments and managed to achieve a high degree of harmony between the court's decision and people's simple concept of fairness and justice instead of"smoothing things over"or sticking to"rigid'or"hard"provisions.The decision of the case highlighted the seriousness and authority of the law and maintained the order of the national drug market,and meanwhile responded to the public's expectation for justice within the scope of law and promoted the resolution to the problem of difficult access to medication for children suffering from rare diseases,thus realizing the coordinating unity of legal,social and political effects and facilitating the process of rule of law.The seventh case is taken from Case No.1 of the Typical Retrial Cases Concerning the Protection of Property Rights of Private Enterprises and the Legitimate Rights and Interests of Entrepreneurs issued by the Supreme People's Court on October 10th,2023.It arose from an economic dispute between a state-owned enterprise and a private enterprise.The court of retrial,adhering to the principles of protection in accordance with law,equal protection,seeking truth from facts and correcting mistakes whenever discovered and based on the facts established in the retrial,decided that the defendant's acts did not constitute a crime as they did not violate the criminal law although there was an economic dispute between the two par-ties,and thus acquitted the defendant in accordance with law.The retrial and revision of this case have demonstrated the firm determination of the people's courts to fully implement the fair competition policy in the new era,to insist on treating economic sectors of different own-erships equally and impartially and to strive to create a fair and just,stable and predictable business environment based on the rule of law.This boosts the confidence of the private entrepreneurs and lightens their loads with reassuring gestures.The eighth case is taken from Case No.9 of the Typical Cases of Judicial Aid for the Protection of Minors'Rights and Interests jointly released by the Supreme People's Court and All-China Women's Federation on May 29th,2023.It is a typical example of the people's court adhering to the judicial aid concept of"all-out aid+whole-process care",introducing"a third-party to supervise judicial aid fund"and extending its function of judi-cial services.The court actively coordinated with the government,schools,neighborhood committees and other units where the minors were located.They made concerted efforts to build up a standardized,safe,convenient and practical mechanism for the use and supervi-sion of the judicial aid fund and made good use of it to ensure that every cent would be used to solve the problems of the minors in their studies and lives.This has achieved a good social effect.The ninth case is taken from Case No.3 of the Top Ten Cases of the People's Courts in 2023,which is also Candidate Case No.3 of the Top 10 Cases in Promoting the Rule of Law in the New Era in 2023.The decision in this case found that cohabiting men and women with the basic fact of living together could constitute"family members"in the crime of abuse,and that repeated,persistent and prolonged verbal abuse among family members and mental abuse,if the circumstances were serious,could constitute the crime of abuse.This is of great significance in the handling of criminal cases involving violations of the personal rights and interests of family members in such situations in that it has responded positively to changes in the social structure and provided a rational definition of family members.The tenth case is taken from Case No.2 of the Top Ten Cases of the People's Courts in 2023.It is the first public interest litigation case concerning illegal placement of invasive species in China.In this case,the court,taking into consideration the intent of the defendant and the biosecurity risk to be caused,decided that the defendant should bear punitive dam-ages,which showed the court's clear attitude to impose punishment on illegal acts that endangered biosecurity.The court trial was reported by a number of media and broadcast live on the Internet with more than 1 million viewers.An expert appeared in court to provide specialized knowledge concerning the hazards of invasive species.This has enhanced the public awareness of biosecurity risk prevention and led to positive social impacts.
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