sum up judicial experience and to discuss important or difficult cases and other issues relating to the judicial works. Professional and special courts Other special courts include military courts, maritime courts and railway courts. The military court, established within the People's Liberation Army, is the relatively closed adjudication institution in charge of hearing criminal cases involving servicemen. The maritime courts are located at the major sea and river port cities. They have jurisdiction over maritime cases and maritime trade cases of first instance. It ranks equivalent to an intermediate court in the judiciary hierarchy. The railway transport court deals with criminal cases and economic disputes relating to railway and transportation. People's procuratorates Under Article 129 of the Constitution, people's procuratories are "the State organs for legal supervision". Its functions are defined by the Organic Law of the People's Procuratorates (1983). The Supreme People's Procuratorate is set up at national level. The local people's procuratorates are divided into three tiers, as with the people's courts. Procuratorial committees are created inside the people's procuratorates at different levels. According to Article 3 of the Organic Law, "the procuratorial committee shall apply the system of democratic centralism and, under the direction of the chief procurator, hold discussions on important cases and other major issues". The procuratorates are responsible for indict criminal suspects as public prosecutor. Informal mediation Like in imperial times, resolving disputes in China has relied heavily on community mediation rather than litigation within a formal court system. Although a great number of disputes in China to this day are settled informally through community mediation, legal actions are increasingly resorted nowadays by ordinary people to resolve their disputes. Courts are overburdened in many parts of China (for instance, judges at the Basic People's Court in Chaoyang District and Haidian District in Beijing have an average caseload of 300-400 per year).Traditionally, the emphasis has been on compromise, maintaining social harmony, and establishing order. But unlike previous eras, there existed, notably in the first part of the Communist era, mass show trials and public criticisms to enforce the party line, establish party dominance, and make examples of certain values of society. After the Communist Party took control, it institutionalized many of the existing informal community mediation systems into the party-state structure. Mediation Committees, staffed by five to eleven community members, were made part of larger Residents’ Committees and charged with settling disputes through peer pressure