Justice in the Shadow of Power: Understanding the Limits of Civil Justice Reform in China Through Entrepreneurs’ (Un)Willingness to Use Courts

Abstract

Based on the private enterprise surveys conducted in the 2000s, this paper ascertained that, in China, entrepreneurs who are politically connected were more inclined than those unconnected to resolve disputes through litigation, especially when the disputes were between private parties. Administrative disputes were much less frequently resolved in courts for either the political haves or have-nots. Moreover, the different litigation inclinations did not seem to be a consequence of different mastery of legal knowledge since the gap did not narrow in spite of the increase of learning opportunities over time. All these findings seem to confirm the political bias ingrained in the Chinese judiciary. At the same time, the quantitative study also showed the recent civil justice reform to be ineffective in correcting this judicial bias. Lack of judicial independence was blamed to have led the civil justice reform to a dead end. With no improvements in courts’ neutrality, the technocratic reform failed to win support from the people. The Chinese experience told an illustrative story of judicial professionalism not being self-sustainable when divorced with judicial independence.