Provided are a speech processing apparatus and method capable of selecting a speech processing server connected to a network and a rule to be used in the server, and capable of readily performing highly accurate speech processing. In a speech processing system, a client 102 can be connected across a network 101 to at least one speech recognition server 110 for recognizing speech data. The client 102 receives speech data input from a speech input unit 106, and designates, from the speech recognition servers 110, a speech recognition server to be used to process the input speech. The client 102 transmits the input speech to the designated speech recognition server via a communication unit 103, and receives a processing result (recognition result) of the speech data processed by the speech recognition server by using a predetermined rule.