Recently, three departments including the Supreme People's Court (the "SPC") jointly issued the Guiding Opinions on the Application of the Justifiable Defense System in Accordance with the Law (the "Opinions").

The Opinions provide for the accurate application of the justifiable defense system in accordance with the law in a comprehensive and systematic manner from three aspects, namely, overall requirements, specific application and work requirements. The specific application of the justifiable defense system constitutes the main content of the Opinions, which includes three parts, respectively specifying the application of justifiable defense, excessive defense, and special defense. The Opinions propose to accurately grasp the determination conditions for excessive defense and provide that an act of defense may be deemed as excessive defense only when it meets the two conditions simultaneously, namely, "obviously exceeding the limit of necessity" and "causing serious harm"; whether the act of defense "obviously exceeds the limit of necessity" shall be judged based on the situation in which the defender takes the act of defense and in combination with the general public perception; "causing serious harm" refers to causing serious injury or death to the perpetrator of the unlawful act, excluding minor injuries or harm less serious than minor injuries.

(Source: Supreme People’s Court)