rights.

As if this overlapping were little, Professor Cuming also informed

me of the creation of a Registry for Financial Leases with the “Credit
Reference Centre of the People’s Bank of China”275
E. Supreme Court Land Right Directives and Letter of Credit
Judicial Interpretations: Cures of Legal Invertebration?
Article 3 of the PRC Constitution makes it clear that “All administrative,
judicial, and procuratorial organs of the state are created by the people’s
congresses to which they are responsible and under whose supervision they
operate.”276 Consequently, the SPC is not an independent entity. It is
supervised by the NPC and the NPC is, in turn, controlled by the Chinese
Communist Party.277 Nonetheless the SPC has for some time been
empowered to fill statutory gaps and harmonize the often competing
statutory, administrative and judicial rules.
This gap filling role has been enhanced during the last decade by its
issuance of quasi-statutory directives on land rights such as the
“Interpretation of the Supreme People’s Court about the Issue Concerning
the Laws Applicable to the Trial of Cases of Disputes Over Rural Land
Contracting” in 2005 [hereinafter 2005 Directive] and the “Issues
Regarding the Adjudication of Administrative Cases Involving Rural
Collectively Owned Land” in 2011 [hereinafter 2011 Directive].278 These
directives are published as “official judicial opinions” (Yi Jian),
“explanations” (Jie Da), or commentaries (Jie Shi).279 When necessary, they
widen the scope of existing provisions or clarify their reach and
occasionally create a new rule. 280Article 12 of the 2011 Directive provides
such a clarification. The Property Rights Law of 2007 (PRL) recognized the
need for compensation for the taking of personal as well as real property by
the state. However, since constitutionally land is owned by the state, the
compensation for fixtures taken in conjunction with expropriated land was
uncertain

745

and in practice became discretionary. Article Twelve eliminated the

administrative discretion and instructed governmental officials to