The position of mediation in contemporary Chinese civil justice

27 of the Organic Law.51 Article 31 of the Organic Law.52 Article 32 of the Organic Law.53 This general principle is subject to a few exceptions, i.e. Notice of the Supreme People's Court on Applying the Provisions on Time Limit for Producing Evidence of the Some Provisions on Evidence in Civil Procedures and the Opinions of the Supreme People's Court on Some Issues Concerning the Application of the Civil Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China.54 An intellectual property judge at a basic-level court in a leading commercial city in China believed that the significance of the Guiding Cases system of the SPC has been exaggerated by foreign lawyers and scholars: Interview Ref: 2013/4.the weakest.85 Huang distinguished those mediations where a middleman mediator could be identified (usually relating to cases concerning contractual and transactional disputes) from those where no middleman could be summoned as mediator (usually relating to cases concerning family and neighbour disputes).86 Unlike mediations conducted by middlemen, kin-group based mediations, especially in relation to household division, often reached definitive results and disputes often end with a settlement without the need to go to court.87 As for mediations conducted by middlemen, given the disputes were contractually based there would be greater legal clarity and certainty.Hence disputants were more inclined to resort to formal adjudication should mediation fail to meet their objectives. Magisterial adjudication: the role of mediation in civil dispute resolution in imperial China 2.3.1.