Abstract
At the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee in November 2013, the Communist Party of China (CPC) announced a decision to reform its judicial system.1 It emphasized ‘exercising jurisdiction and prosecutorial power in an independent and impartial manner in accordance with the law’, and improving the mechanism for exercising judicial power. In particular, it stipulated that ‘public trials and prosecutorial work must be made more transparent’ and to ‘press ahead with publicizing court judgment documents that have come into effect’.2 This was an important, though not wholly new, departure.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Decision on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening the Reform.
- 2.
Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, “Decision of CCCPC,” 33–4.
- 3.
Regulations on Strictly Implementing the System of Public Trials (1999), Several Opinions on Enhancing Transparency in Trials in the People’s Courts and Provisions on Transparency in Enforcement in the People’s Courts (2007), and Six Provisions on Judicial Transparency (December 2009).
- 4.
China.com, “Judicial Transparency.”
- 5.
Lawtime, “Opinions on Enhancing Transparency.”
- 6.
Coicaud, Legitimacy and Politics, 1–2.
- 7.
Habermas, Communication and Evolution, 186–7.
- 8.
Przeworski believes that the notion of legitimacy is so vague that it lacks any substantive content, and therefore should be abandoned(Przeworski, Transition to Democracy, 47–63). Stillman also points out that the concept of political legitimacy needs to be reviewed, because people have not been aware of the significant arbitrariness and prejudice contained therein (Stillman, “The Concept of Legitimacy”, 32–56).
- 9.
Habermas, Communication and Evolution, 206.
- 10.
Habermas, Legitimation Crisis, 97.
- 11.
Parsons, Structure and Process.
- 12.
Ibid., 175.
- 13.
Nonet and Selznick, Law and Society, 68.
- 14.
Weber, Economy and Society, 37.
- 15.
Shen, Modern Western Jurisprudence, 58–62.
- 16.
Douglas, How Institutions, 82–3.
- 17.
The reason why gamblers accept the results regardless of winning or losing the game is because gambling has fair procedures. See Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 80–3.
- 18.
Hamilton, Madison and Jay, Federalist Papers, 391.
- 19.
Unger, Law in Modern Society, 190.
- 20.
Ibid., 191.
- 21.
Lawtime, “Opinions on Enhancing Transparency.”
- 22.
Chiu, Judicial Modernization, 17.
- 23.
Radbruch, Introduction to Legal Science, 125–6.
- 24.
These include regulations on the application for a public hearing or for rehearing cases.
- 25.
These include Regulations on Strictly Implementing the System of Public Trials (1999); Several Opinions on Enhancing Transparency in Court Trials in the People’s Courts (2007); Provisions on Transparency in Enforcement in the People’s Courts (2007); and Six Provisions on Judicial Transparency (December 2009).
- 26.
Several Opinions on the Effective Implementation of Justice for the People; Vigorously Strengthening a Fair Judiciary and Continuously Enhancing Judicial Credibility; and Opinions on Promoting the Construction of Three Major Platforms of Judicial Transparency.
- 27.
The error rate of first-instance judgments is the ratio of all cases where amended sentences, retrials, or settlements via mediation took place to the total number of closed first-instance cases, which reflects the quality of judgment in the first-instance cases.
- 28.
The rehearing correction rate is the ratio of all closed rehearing cases where amended sentences, retrials, or settlements via mediation took place to the total number of closed rehearing cases, which reflects the quality of judgment in first-instance, second-instance, or rehearing cases.
- 29.
The data cited in this report are obtained from Law Yearbook Editorial Committee, Law Yearbook of China.
Zhu, Towards Pluralist Legal Practice.
Zhu, Professionalization of Legal Workers, unless otherwise specified.
- 30.
Wang, Political Parties in Government, Chap. 3.
- 31.
According to the reports of the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China will have completed the building of a moderately prosperous society by 2020. It may be anticipated that, prior to this time, the building of the rule of law will still be at its development stage, rather than at the reinforcement or simplification stage.
- 32.
Lawtime, “Opinions on Enhancing Transparency.”
Bibliography
China.com. 2009. The six provisions of the Supreme People’s Court on judicial transparency. [online]. Available at http://www.china.com.cn/policy/txt/2009–12/23/content_19120679.htm. Accessed 27 Aug 2015.
Chiu, L. G. 1992. Judicial modernization and procedural laws. Taipei: San Min Book Co., Ltd..
Coicaud, J. M. 2002. Legitimacy and politics: A contribution to the study of political right and political responsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Douglas, M. 1986. How institutions think. New York: Syracuse University Press, cited in Zhou, M. 2003. Ten lectures on organizational sociology, pp. 82–83. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.
Habermas, J. 1975. Legitimation crisis. Boston: Beacon Press.
——— 1989. Communication and the evolution of society. Chongqing: Chongqing Publishing House.
Hamilton, A., J. Madison, and J. Jay. 2006. Federalist papers. Beijing: The Commercial Press.
Lawtime. 2010. Notice of the Supreme People’s Court on several opinions on enhancing transparency in court trials in the People’s Courts. [online]. Available at http://www.lawtime.cn/info/zhaiquan/zhaiquanzhaiwufagui/20100902/6392.html. Accessed 27 Aug 2015.
Law Yearbook Editorial Committee, ed. 1987–2010. Law yearbook of China. Beijing: China Law Yearbook Press.
Nonet, P., and P. Selznick. 1994. Law and society in transition: Towards responsive law. Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press.
Parsons, T. 1958. Structure and process in modern societies. Glencoe: Free Press.
Przeworski, A. 1986. Some problems in the study of the transition to democracy. In Transition to democracy, eds. P.C. Schmitter, and L. Whitehead, 47–63. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Radbruch, G. 1997. Introduction to legal science. Beijing: Encyclopedia of China Publishing House.
Rawls, J. 1988. A theory of justice. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press.
Shen, Z. 1996. Modern Western jurisprudence. Beijing: Peking University Press.
Stillman, P. G. 1974. The concept of legitimacy. Polity 8: 32–56.
Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee. 2013. Decision of the CCCPC on some major issues concerning comprehensively deepening the reform. Beijing: People’s Publishing House.
Unger, R. M. (1994) [1976]. Law in modern society. Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press.
Wang, L. 2013. Political parties in the government. Beijing: China Legal Publishing House.
Weber, M. 1978. Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology, eds. G. Roth, and C. Wittich. Trans. E. Fischoff, H. Gerth, A. M. Henderson, F. Kolegar, C. W. Mills, T. Parsons, M. Rheinstein, G. Roth, E. Shils, and C. Wittich, 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Zhu, J. W., ed. 2011. Report on legal development in China: Towards pluralist legal practice. Beijing: China Renmin University Press.
———, ed. 2012. Report on legal development in China: Professionalization of China’s legal workers. Beijing: China Renmin University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, L. (2016). Enhancing Credibility and Transparency Through Judicial Reforms. In: Tsang, S., Men, H. (eds) China in the Xi Jinping Era. The Nottingham China Policy Institute Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29549-7_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29549-7_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-29548-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-29549-7
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)