The People's Court in Transition: The prospects of the Chinese judicial reform

Abstract

For a long time the Chinese courts were beset by the lack of impartiality and autonomy owning to the heavy political influence exerted by the ruling party, the shortage of well trained judicial personnel and, more generally, the absence of social respect for the traditionally insignificant judicial branch in a primarily administrative state. Thus the existing judicial system is woefully inadequate for sustaining a market economy, as it fails to meet the Weberian conditions for a politically neutral legal system that uniformly enforces the economic relationship forged in market transactions. The uniform administra tion of justice is further jeopardized in China by the enormous diversity of local conditions and interests typical to a developing state, and by the intimate relations between the courts and local political branches. The necessity of reforming the current court system hardly need any argument, yet how to reform it--especially in a politically feasible manner--is by no means clear. Divided into four parts, this paper is essentially an analysis of the current judicial problems in China and their proposed solutions. First, it presents a preliminary theoretical model for analyzing a judicial system. Next, it categorizes the problems that constitute the 'judicial syndrome' in China. It then outlines solutions that have been put forward to cure the syndrome. The paper ends with a brief discussion of the likelihood that these solutions will actually work.