Officials from China's Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate reaffirmed recently their commitment to improving mechanisms for substantively resolving administrative disputes.

This push is aimed at addressing the persistent issue of "cases closed but matters unresolved", where judicial proceedings end without solving the underlying conflict between government departments and citizens or organizations.

Administrative disputes, which arise from specific administrative acts, are primarily handled through administrative reconsideration and administrative litigation. However, in complex cases, the process can suffer from "judicial procedural spinning without substantive progress", undermining both public interests and the credibility of the rule of law.

Zhang Xiangjun, director of the SPP's administrative procuratorate office, emphasized that instances where a case is judicially closed but the underlying matter remains unresolved is a prominent issue that draws strong complaints from the public.

To advance substantive dispute resolution, the SPC, SPP, and the Ministry of Justice, along with eight other ministerial-level departments, the "3+N" mechanism, established a joint working system in 2024. The participating departments, including the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance, signed a cooperation memorandum in July this year to enhance synergy. This effort includes jointly issuing meeting minutes on substantive resolution in five key areas, such as social security and real estate registration.

Geng Baojian, director of the SPC's administrative tribunal, stated that the "3+N" mechanism is effectively coordinating various forces and will be leveraged to connect administrative organs, courts, procuratorates, and justice departments for more streamlined dispute settlement. Special attention will be paid to addressing issues like unreasonable case structures and repetitive litigation.

Since 2019, procuratorial authorities nationwide have substantively resolved over 65,000 administrative disputes through methods that include supervision, mediation promotion, and public hearings. Over 3,400 of these disputes had remained unresolved for more than a decade.

Data from the SPC shows improved efficiency, with the appeal rate in national administrative trials dropping by 5.23 percentage points year-on-year from January to September 2025, and the on-time case closure rate rising by 1.68 percentage points.