Decoding China’s Sixth Five-Year Judicial Reform Plan

Abstract

At the end of 2024, China’s Supreme People’s Court issued its “Sixth Five-Year People’s Courts Reform Plan Outline”, following approval by the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.

This article decodes the background, content, and implementation of the Sixth Reform Plan Outline. It highlights this plan’s differences with previous judicial reform plans and its links with recent programmatic Party documents. The analysis provides insights into the role of the Chinese judiciary in fulfilling the goal, set by the Party leadership, of doing its part to basically achieve socialist modernization. It first introduces the Party policy and drafting background related to the Sixth Reform Plan Outline before providing a detailed overview of its content and comparing it with earlier reform plan outlines.