On September 3, the Supreme People's Court held a press conference to release the "Guiding Opinions of the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security on the Application of the Legitimate Defense System in Accordance with the Law" (hereinafter referred to as the "Guiding Opinions") and typical cases. Jiang Qibo, Director of the Research Office of the Supreme People's Court, Lao Dongyan, Deputy Director of the Legal Policy Research Office of the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and Zeng Bin, Second-level Inspector of the Legal Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, attended the press conference and introduced the relevant situation. Li Guangyu, spokesperson of the Supreme People's Court, presided over the press conference.

Jiang Qibo reported on the relevant situation of the "Guiding Opinions":

1. The Background of Formulating the "Guiding Opinions"

Legitimate defense is a right conferred on citizens by law and an important legal weapon to fight against illegal acts. The 1997 revision of the Criminal Law made significant adjustments to Article 20 regarding the legitimate defense system, relaxing the limits of legitimate defense and adding a special defense system. Since the implementation of the 1997 Criminal Law, people's courts, people's procuratorates, and public security organs at all levels have, in accordance with the provisions of the revised Criminal Law, correctly and properly handled a large number of related cases, and have generally achieved good legal and social effects. However, some cases have problems such as overly strict or even seriously inappropriate application of the legitimate defense system. In recent years, cases involving legitimate defense have often aroused widespread concern, with news media, experts, scholars, and the general public participating in them, expressing their opinions and engaging in heated discussions.

In order to actively respond to social concerns and vigorously promote the core socialist values, the "Work Plan for Comprehensively Implementing the Core Socialist Values in Judicial Interpretations (2018-2023)" issued by the Supreme People's Court in July 2018 proposed: "Promulgate judicial interpretations on the application of laws for acts of defense exceeding the limit in due course, and clarify the standards for determining legitimate defense, defense exceeding the limit, and the application of laws for disputes related to acts of courage." According to the plan requirements, the Supreme People's Court launched the drafting of the document. Considering that the application of the legitimate defense system is related to the three stages of investigation, prosecution, and trial, and involves the three organs of public security, procuratorate, and court, joint issuance of documents is conducive to better unifying the application of laws. After consultation with the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security, it was decided to jointly formulate guiding opinions by the "two highs and one ministry" to make systematic provisions on all aspects of the application of the legitimate defense system in accordance with the law; at the same time, in conjunction with the "Guiding Opinions", seven typical cases involving legitimate defense were jointly released, combining specific cases to explain the issues that need to be paid attention to in the application of the criminal law provisions and the "Guiding Opinions" of the legitimate defense system in a targeted manner. In short, the adoption of the "Guiding Opinions + Typical Cases" approach is intended to achieve a good effect of combining points and surfaces.

The formulation of these guiding opinions is an important measure for the people's courts, people's procuratorates, and public security organs to adhere to the people-centered development philosophy, give full play to the functions of criminal justice, actively respond to the concerns of the people, and promote the core socialist values. The promulgation and implementation of the "Guiding Opinions" is of great significance for accurately understanding and applying the legal provisions of legitimate defense, correctly handling legitimate defense cases, protecting citizens' legitimate defense rights in accordance with the law, encouraging acts of courage, and promoting social integrity.

2. Main Contents of the "Guiding Opinions"

The "Guiding Opinions" adhere to the problem-oriented approach, and use twenty-two articles from three aspects: overall requirements, specific application, and work requirements, to make a more comprehensive and systematic provision for the accurate application of the legitimate defense system in accordance with the law.

First aspect: Overall requirements for the application of the legitimate defense system. Cases involving legitimate defense vary greatly, and the nature of a specific case may change due to a single detail factor. The "Guiding Opinions" cannot provide answers that can be "matched" for each specific case, but can only provide relatively clear rules and guidelines on universal and principled issues. The key to properly handling specific cases involving legitimate defense in accordance with the law lies in the handling personnel thoroughly understanding the spirit of the law, establishing correct concepts, grasping the public's concept of fairness and justice, and making accurate judgments that conform to legal principles, reasoning, and human feelings. Based on this, the first part of the "Guiding Opinions" specifically stipulates the overall requirements for the application of the legitimate defense system. Specifically: First, grasp the legislative spirit and handle cases strictly and impartially. It is necessary to accurately understand and grasp the legal provisions and legislative spirit of legitimate defense, and resolutely identify those that meet the conditions for the establishment of legitimate defense in accordance with the law, and effectively correct the erroneous tendency of "whoever makes trouble has reason" and "whoever dies or is injured has reason", and resolutely defend the legal spirit that "the law cannot give way to illegality." Second, base on the specific circumstances of the case and accurately identify it in accordance with the law. It is necessary to base on the specific situation of the defender at the time of defense, comprehensively consider the overall process of the case, and combine the possible reactions of ordinary people in similar situations to accurately grasp the time, limits and other conditions of the defense in accordance with the law. It is necessary to fully consider the urgent state and tense psychology of the defender when facing illegal infringement, and prevent judging the defender afterwards with the calm, rational, objective and precise standards under normal circumstances. Third, adhere to the unity of law, reason and emotion, and maintain fairness and justice. It is necessary to pay attention to finding out the causes and consequences, distinguishing right from wrong, ensuring that the handling of cases is based on law, reasonable, and compatible with human feelings, conforms to the people's concept of fairness and justice, and achieves the organic unity of legal and social effects. Fourth, accurately grasp the boundaries and prevent improper identification. For illegal and criminal acts that use defense as a pretext to carry out illegal infringements, it is necessary to resolutely avoid being identified as legitimate defense or defense exceeding the limit. For those who have the nature of defense, but the defense behavior obviously exceeds the necessary limit and causes major damage, it should be identified as defense exceeding the limit in accordance with the law.

Second aspect: Specific application of the legitimate defense system. This is the main content of the "Guiding Opinions", including three parts, which respectively stipulate the specific application of legitimate defense, defense exceeding the limit, and special defense. In summary, the "Guiding Opinions" put forward ten rules, which can also be called "ten accuracies":

First, accurately grasp the cause conditions of legitimate defense. The cause of legitimate defense is the existence of illegal infringement. Article 5 of the "Guiding Opinions" stipulates the specific understanding of illegal infringement, clarifying that: "Illegal infringement includes not only acts that infringe on the rights to life and health, but also acts that infringe on the rights to personal freedom, public and private property, etc.; it includes both criminal acts and illegal acts." "Illegal infringement includes not only illegal infringement against oneself, but also illegal infringement that endangers the state, public interests, or others." "For illegal infringements such as illegally restricting the personal freedom of others and illegally invading the residences of others, defense may be carried out."

Second, accurately grasp the time conditions of legitimate defense. Legitimate defense must be against ongoing illegal infringement, that is, the illegal infringement has already begun and has not yet ended. Regarding the criteria for judging time conditions, Article 6 of the "Guiding Opinions" emphasizes: "Whether the illegal infringement has begun or ended, it should be based on the situation in which the defender is at the time of defense, and a reasonable judgment should be made in accordance with the general cognition of the public, and the defender should not be demanded."

Third, accurately grasp the object conditions of legitimate defense. Legitimate defense is "right against wrong" and must be directed against the unlawful aggressor. However, the unlawful aggressor should not be narrowly understood as the person who directly commits the unlawful infringement, but also includes the organizers and instigators on the scene who jointly commit the unlawful infringement. Article 7 of the Guiding Opinions makes this clear. In addition, Article 7 of the Guiding Opinions also stipulates: "If it is known that the infringer is a person without criminal responsibility or with limited criminal responsibility, other methods should be used as much as possible to avoid or stop the infringement; if there are no other methods to avoid or stop the unlawful infringement, or the unlawful infringement seriously endangers personal safety, a counterattack may be carried out."

Second, accurately grasp the intentional conditions of legitimate defense. Legitimate defense must have a legitimate defensive intent. Article 8 of the Guiding Opinions stipulates: "Legitimate defense must be for the purpose of protecting the State, public interests, or the personal, property, and other rights of oneself or others from unlawful infringement. Defensive provocation, in which one deliberately provokes the other party to infringe upon oneself through language, behavior, etc., and then counterattacks, should not be recognized as defensive behavior."

Third, accurately distinguish between defensive behavior and mutual fighting. Both legitimate defense and mutual fights may cause damage to the other party, and they are similar in appearance and easily confused. In practice, there are individual cases of "muddying the waters" and "splitting the difference," where each party is treated as a criminal as long as they cause minor injuries or more serious consequences to the other party, blurring the line between "right" and "wrong," which should be corrected. Article 9 of the Guiding Opinions requires adhering to the principle of unifying the subjective and objective, making a comprehensive judgment, accurately grasping the actor's subjective intention and the nature of the behavior, and accurately determining whether the relevant behavior is legitimate defense or mutual fighting.

Fourth, accurately distinguish between abuse of the right of defense and legitimate defense. Article 10 of the Guiding Opinions requires preventing the act of abusing the right of defense from being identified as defensive behavior, "For insignificant unlawful infringements, where the actor directly uses methods sufficient to cause serious injury or death to stop the infringement when he can identify it, it should not be identified as defensive behavior. If the unlawful infringement is caused by the actor's gross negligence, and the actor still deliberately uses methods sufficient to cause serious injury or death to fight back when he can use other means to avoid the infringement, it should not be identified as defensive behavior."

Fifth, accurately grasp the conditions for determining excessive defense. Compared with legitimate defense, excessive defense only breaks through the limit condition, that is, "obviously exceeds the necessary limit and causes major damage." In order to unify the application of the law, Articles 11 to 13 of the Guiding Opinions clarify that the determination of excessive defense should simultaneously meet the two conditions of "obviously exceeding the necessary limit" and "causing major damage," and neither is indispensable; to judge whether it "obviously exceeds the necessary limit," it is necessary to base the judgment on the situation in which the defender is at the time of defense, combined with the general knowledge of the public; "causing major damage" means causing serious injury or death to the unlawful infringer. Damage resulting in minor injuries or less does not constitute major damage.

Sixth, accurately grasp the criminal punishment discretion of excessive defense. Excessive defense should be held criminally liable, but the punishment should be mitigated or exempted. Article 14 of the Guiding Opinions requires "comprehensive consideration of the circumstances of the case, especially the degree of fault of the unlawful infringer, the severity of the unlawful infringement, and the defender's panic and tension in the face of the unlawful infringement, to ensure that the criminal punishment is appropriate and fair."

Seventh, accurately grasp the conditions for determining special defense. Articles 15 to 17 of the Guiding Opinions clarify the specific meaning of "homicide, murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping, and other violent crimes that seriously endanger personal safety" around the causal conditions of special defense. Article 16 stipulates: "In the process of implementing unlawful infringement, there are violent crimes that seriously endanger personal safety, such as homicide, robbery, rape, and kidnapping, such as robbing guns, ammunition, and explosives by violent means, or abducting and trafficking in women and children by kidnapping means, special defense may be implemented." The implementation of special defense, causing injury or death to the unlawful infringer, does not constitute excessive defense and is not criminally liable.

Eighth, accurately grasp the relationship between general defense and special defense. Article 18 of the Guiding Opinions stipulates: "For defensive acts that do not meet the causal conditions of special defense, causing injury or death to the unlawful infringer, if there is no obvious exceeding of the necessary limit, it should also be identified as legitimate defense and not be held criminally liable."

Third aspect, relevant work requirements for handling cases involving legitimate defense. The handling of legitimate defense cases involves the entire criminal procedure. Only through the joint efforts of the three public security, procuratorial, and judicial organs and all sectors of society can a good legal environment be created for the correct application of the legitimate defense system. Based on this, Part 5 of the Guiding Opinions specifically clarifies the relevant work requirements for handling cases involving legitimate defense. Specifically: First, do a good job in investigation and evidence collection, and comprehensively collect various types of evidence materials; second, comprehensively review the facts and evidence, and handle cases fairly and impartially in accordance with the law; third, strengthen the work of explaining the law and analyzing the reasons, and respond to the concerns of the parties and the society; fourth, do a good job in the work of publicizing the rule of law, and give full play to the guiding role of judicial cases on social customs.
 

Appendix: Relevant provisions of the Criminal Law

Article 20  Any act taken to stop an unlawful infringement that is in progress in order to protect the State, public interests, or the personal, property, and other rights of oneself or others from unlawful infringement, and that causes damage to the unlawful infringer, shall be deemed legitimate defense and shall not be held criminally liable.

Anyone who obviously exceeds the necessary limit in legitimate defense and causes major damage shall be held criminally liable, but the punishment shall be mitigated or exempted.

Anyone who takes defensive action against violent crimes such as homicide, murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping, and other violent crimes that seriously endanger personal safety that are in progress, and causes injury or death to the unlawful infringer, shall not be deemed excessive defense and shall not be held criminally liable.

Fa Fa [2020] No. 31

Guiding Opinions of the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuratorate, and the Ministry of Public Security on the Application of the Legitimate Defense System According to Law

In order to apply the legitimate defense system accurately according to law, safeguard citizens' legitimate defense rights, encourage acts of justice and courage, promote socialist core values into criminal justice work, these opinions are formulated in accordance with the relevant provisions of the "Criminal Law of the People's Republic of China" and the "Criminal Procedure Law of the People's Republic of China", combined with the actual work.

1. Overall Requirements

1. Grasp the legislative spirit and handle cases strictly and impartially. Legitimate defense is a right conferred to citizens by law. It is important to accurately understand and grasp the legal provisions and legislative spirit of legitimate defense, and resolutely recognize those that meet the conditions for the establishment of legitimate defense in accordance with the law. It is necessary to effectively prevent the erroneous practices of "whoever makes trouble is justified" and "whoever dies or is injured is justified", and resolutely defend the legal spirit that "the law cannot yield to illegality."

2. Based on the specific circumstances of the case, accurately identify according to law. It is necessary to base the defense on the specific circumstances of the defender at the time of the defense, comprehensively consider the entire process of the case, and accurately grasp the conditions such as the time and extent of the defense in combination with the possible reactions of the average person in similar situations. It is necessary to fully consider the defender's urgent state and tense psychology when facing illegal infringement, and prevent judging the defender afterwards with calm, rational, objective, and precise standards under normal circumstances.

3. Adhere to the unity of law, reason, and emotion, and maintain fairness and justice. When determining whether a legitimate defense constitutes, whether the defense is excessive, and when measuring penalties for excessive defense, attention should be paid to ascertaining the causes and consequences, distinguishing right from wrong, ensuring that the handling of the case is based on legal grounds, reasonable, and compatible with emotions, in line with the people's concept of fairness and justice, and achieves the organic unity of legal and social effects.

4. Accurately grasp the boundaries and prevent improper identification. For illegal and criminal acts that use defense as a pretext to carry out illegal infringements, it is necessary to resolutely avoid being identified as legitimate defense or excessive defense. For those who have defensive nature, but the defensive behavior obviously exceeds the necessary limits and causes major damage, it should be identified as excessive defense in accordance with the law.

II. Specific Application of Legitimate Defense

5. Accurately grasp the cause conditions of legitimate defense. The premise of legitimate defense is the existence of illegal infringement. Illegal infringement includes acts that infringe on the rights to life and health, as well as acts that infringe on the rights to personal freedom, public and private property; it includes both criminal acts and illegal acts. Illegal infringement should not be improperly limited to violent infringement or criminal acts. Defense can be carried out against illegal infringements such as illegally restricting the personal freedom of others and illegally invading the homes of others. Illegal infringement includes illegal infringement against oneself, as well as illegal infringement that endangers the state, public interests, or others. Defense can be carried out against illegal and criminal acts that endanger safe driving and endanger public safety, such as pulling the steering wheel and beating the driver. Adults should dissuade and stop illegal infringements being carried out by minors against other minors; if the dissuasion and stop are ineffective, defense can be carried out.

6. Accurately grasp the time conditions of legitimate defense. Legitimate defense must be directed against ongoing illegal infringement. If the illegal infringement has formed a real and imminent danger, it should be recognized that the illegal infringement has begun; if the illegal infringement is temporarily interrupted or temporarily stopped, but the illegal infringer still has a real possibility of continuing the infringement, it should be recognized that the illegal infringement is still in progress; in property crimes, although the illegal infringer has obtained the property, it can be regarded as the illegal infringement is still in progress if the property can be recovered through measures such as chasing and blocking; if the illegal infringer has indeed lost the ability to infringe or has indeed abandoned the infringement, it should be recognized that the illegal infringement has ended. Whether the illegal infringement has begun or ended should be based on the situation in which the defender is at the time of the defense, and a reasonable judgment should be made in accordance with the general knowledge of the public, and the defender should not be demanded. If the defender has a wrong understanding of whether the illegal infringement has begun or ended due to panic, tension, and other psychological factors, it should be properly handled in accordance with the principle of the unity of subjective and objective factors.

7. Accurately grasp the object conditions of legitimate defense. Legitimate defense must be directed against the illegal infringer. For multiple people jointly carrying out illegal infringement, defense can be carried out against both the person who directly carries out the illegal infringement and the person who jointly carries out the illegal infringement at the scene. If it is known that the infringer is a person without criminal responsibility or a person with limited criminal responsibility, other methods should be used as much as possible to avoid or stop the infringement; if there are no other methods to avoid or stop the illegal infringement, or the illegal infringement seriously endangers personal safety, a counterattack can be carried out.

8. Accurately grasp the intent conditions of legitimate defense. Legitimate defense must be for the purpose of protecting the state, public interests, oneself or others' personal, property and other rights from illegal infringement. For defensive provocation that deliberately provokes the other party to infringe on oneself with language, behavior, etc., and then counterattacks, it should not be recognized as defensive behavior.

9. Accurately distinguish between defensive behavior and mutual fighting. Defensive behavior and mutual fighting have similarities in appearance. To accurately distinguish between the two, it is necessary to adhere to the principle of the unity of subjective and objective factors, and accurately judge the actor's subjective intention and behavior by comprehensively considering the cause of the case, whether there was fault in escalating the conflict, whether weapons were used or prepared to be used, whether obviously disproportionate violence was used, and whether others were gathered to participate in the fight.

If a dispute arises over trivial matters and both parties cannot maintain restraint and a fight ensues, the behavior of the party who fights back should generally be recognized as defensive behavior if the party at fault acts first and the means are obviously excessive, or if one party acts first and continues to infringe even when the other party tries to avoid the conflict.

If both parties have a conflict due to trivial matters, and after the conflict ends, one party commits an illegal infringement and the other party retaliates, including retaliating with tools, it should generally be considered a defensive act. The determination of the defensive intent should not be affected merely because the actor made prior defensive preparations.

10. Prevent the act of abusing the right of defense from being identified as a defensive act. For a significantly minor illegal infringement, if the actor directly uses a method sufficient to cause serious injury or death when he can identify it, it should not be identified as a defensive act. If the illegal infringement is caused by the actor's gross fault, and the actor still deliberately uses a method sufficient to cause serious injury or death to fight back when he can use other means to avoid the infringement, it should not be identified as a defensive act.

3. Specific Application of Excessive Defense

11. Accurately grasp the conditions for determining excessive defense. According to the provisions of Article 20, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Law, the determination of excessive defense shall simultaneously meet the two conditions of "obviously exceeding the necessary limit" and "causing major damage", which are indispensable.

12. Accurately determine "obviously exceeding the necessary limit". Whether the defense "obviously exceeds the necessary limit" shall be judged by comprehensively considering the nature, means, intensity, and degree of harm of the illegal infringement, as well as the timing, means, intensity, and harmful consequences of the defense, considering the balance of power between the two parties, based on the situation in which the defender is at the time of the defense, and in combination with the general perception of the public. When judging the degree of harm of illegal infringement, not only the damage that has been caused, but also the imminent danger and realistic possibility of causing further damage shall be considered. It should not be demanded that the defender must take a counterattack method and intensity that is basically equivalent to the illegal infringement. Through comprehensive consideration, if the defensive behavior is significantly different from the illegal infringement and is obviously excessive, it shall be determined that the defense obviously exceeds the necessary limit.

13. Accurately determine "causing major damage". "Causing major damage" means causing serious injury or death to the illegal infringer. Causing minor injuries and below does not constitute major damage. If the defensive behavior obviously exceeds the necessary limit but does not cause major damage, it should not be identified as excessive defense.

14. Accurately grasp the criminal punishment measurement of excessive defense. Excessive defense shall be held criminally liable, but the punishment shall be mitigated or exempted. The circumstances of the case shall be comprehensively considered, especially the degree of fault of the illegal infringer, the severity of the illegal infringement, and the defender's panic, tension and other psychological factors in the face of the illegal infringement, to ensure that the criminal punishment measurement is appropriate and fair. For excessive defense behaviors caused by infringers implementing illegal infringements that seriously demean the personality and dignity of others and seriously violate ethics and morality, or repeatedly and for a long time, full consideration shall be given to sentencing to ensure that the handling of the case can withstand legal scrutiny and conform to the concept of social fairness and justice.

4. Specific Application of Special Defense

15. Accurately understand and grasp "violent assault". According to the provisions of Article 20, Paragraph 3 of the Criminal Law, the following behaviors shall be identified as "violent assault": (1) using a deadly weapon to seriously endanger the personal safety of others; (2) not using a weapon or not using a deadly weapon, but based on the number of illegal infringers, the striking parts and strength, etc., it has indeed seriously endangered the personal safety of others. Although no actual damage has been caused, it has caused serious and imminent danger to personal safety, it can be identified as "violent assault".

16. Accurately understand and grasp "homicide, robbery, rape, kidnapping". "Homicide, robbery, rape, kidnapping" as stipulated in Article 20, Paragraph 3 of the Criminal Law refers to specific criminal acts rather than specific charges. Special defense may be implemented in cases where there are violent crimes such as homicide, robbery, rape, and kidnapping that seriously endanger personal safety in the process of implementing illegal infringement, such as robbing guns, ammunition, and explosives by violent means, or abducting and trafficking women and children by kidnapping means. If the relevant behavior does not seriously endanger personal safety, the legal provisions for general defense shall apply.

17. Accurately understand and grasp "other violent crimes that seriously endanger personal safety". "Other violent crimes that seriously endanger personal safety" as stipulated in Article 20, Paragraph 3 of the Criminal Law shall be equivalent to homicide, robbery, rape, and kidnapping, and have the imminent danger and realistic possibility of causing serious injury or death.

18. Accurately grasp the relationship between general defense and special defense. For defensive behaviors that do not meet the causal conditions for special defense and cause injury or death to the illegal infringer, if they do not obviously exceed the necessary limit, they shall also be identified as legitimate defense and shall not be held criminally liable.

5. Work Requirements

19. Do a good job in investigation and evidence collection. When handling cases involving legitimate defense, public security organs shall collect various types of evidence related to the case in a timely and comprehensive manner in accordance with the law, so as to lay a factual foundation for the fair and just handling of the case in accordance with the law. The evidence collection work shall be timely, and if there are audio-visual materials, electronic data and other evidence materials at the conflict site, they shall be collected as soon as possible; witnesses to the conflict process shall be questioned as soon as possible. The evidence collection work shall be comprehensive, and all types of evidence that are valuable for proving the facts of the case shall be collected in a timely manner in accordance with the law, especially evidence involving judging whether it is a defensive act, whether it is legitimate defense or excessive defense, and the causes and consequences of the case.

20. Handle cases fairly and justly in accordance with the law. It is necessary to comprehensively review the factual evidence, carefully listen to the opinions of all parties, attach great importance to the defense and defense opinions of criminal suspects, defendants and their defenders regarding legitimate defense or excessive defense, and verify them in a timely manner to accurately determine the facts and correctly apply the law. It is necessary to disclose work information such as the progress of case handling in a timely manner to respond to social concerns. For cases that are identified as legitimate defense in accordance with the law, decisions shall be made in a timely manner not to file a case, withdraw the case, not approve the arrest, or acquit the defendant in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law. For cases of excessive defense, the leniency system for admitting guilt and accepting punishment shall be applied in accordance with the law; for cases where the circumstances of the crime are minor and do not require criminal punishment or exemption from criminal punishment in accordance with the law, the People's Procuratorate may make a decision not to prosecute. For illegal infringers suspected of committing a crime, they shall be prosecuted in a timely manner in accordance with the law. When the people's court hears the first-instance case involving legitimate defense, if the social impact is large or the case is complicated, a collegial panel composed of people's jurors and judges shall conduct the trial; if the social impact is significant, a collegial panel composed of people's jurors and judges shall conduct the trial.

21. Strengthen the work of explaining the law and analyzing the reasons. It is necessary to focus on the focus of the case dispute and social concerns, base on facts and abide by the law, accurately and meticulously explain the basis and reasons for handling the case, strengthen the explanation of the law and analysis of the reasons in legal documents, effectively respond to the concerns of the parties and the society, and make the handling of the case a public legal education class for the whole people, so as to achieve the effect of handling a case and educating a large area. We must do our best to resolve conflicts and promote social harmony and stability.

22. Do a good job in publicizing the rule of law. We must conscientiously implement the popularization of law responsibility system of "whoever enforces the law, popularizes the law", do a good job in explaining the law by case, and make the handling of legitimate defense cases a process of popularizing the law for all people and promoting the core socialist values. We should increase the release of guiding cases and typical cases involving legitimate defense, clearly protect the legitimate rights and interests of legitimate defenders and people who act bravely for justice, promote social integrity, and at the same time guide the public to solve trivial disputes in accordance with the law, rationally and peacefully, eliminate social grievances, and enhance social harmony.