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Scholars Press China to Embrace Judicial Independence
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So, here it is:
Highlights of communique of 4th plenary session of CPC Central Committee
Source:Xinhua Published: 2014-10-23 19:40:53
The fourth plenary session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced a communique after its closing on Thursday.
Following are the highlights of the document, which focuses on "comprehensively advancing the rule of law" in China.
-- The general target is to form a system serving "the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics" and build a country under "the socialist rule of law".
-- China will ensure the leadership of CPC in "the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics".
-- The major tasks are to improve a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, in which the Constitution is taken as the core, to strengthen the implementation of the Constitution, to promote administration by law, to speed up building a law-abiding government, to safeguard judicial justice, to improve judicial credibility, to promote the public awareness of rule of law, to enhance the building of a law-based society, to improve team building and to sharpen the CPC's leadership in pushing forward rule of law.
-- To realize the rule of law, the country should be ruled in line with the Constitution.
-- The system to ensure the implementation of the Constitution and to supervise the implementation should be improved.
-- The National People's Congress and its Standing Committee should play a better role in supervising the Constitution's implementation.
-- China will work to build a law-abiding government.
-- A mechanism to examine the legitimacy of major decision-making in governments should be set up, with a lifelong liability accounting system for major decisions and a retrospective mechanism to hold people accountable for wrong decisions.
-- China will promote transparency of government affairs.
-- A mechanism will be set up to record officials who interfere in judicial cases and name them publicly to hold them accountable.
-- The Supreme People's Court will set up circuit courts, and the country will explore establishing cross-administrative region courts and procuratorates, and seek to allow prosecutors to file public interest litigation cases.
-- The country will enhance the protection of human rights in judicial procedures.
-- China will try to recruit lawmakers, judges and prosecutors from qualified lawyers and law experts.
-- The CPC will improve its internal rules and mechanisms.
-- The effectiveness of implementing rule of law will be a significant index in judging the work of officials at various levels and will be added to their performance appraisal system.
-- The People's Liberation Army will promote the rule of law and enforce strict discipline.
-- China will guarantee the practice of "one country, two systems" and promote national reunification in line with laws.
Highlights of communique of 4th plenary session of CPC Central Committee
Source:Xinhua Published: 2014-10-23 19:40:53
The fourth plenary session of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee announced a communique after its closing on Thursday.
Following are the highlights of the document, which focuses on "comprehensively advancing the rule of law" in China.
-- The general target is to form a system serving "the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics" and build a country under "the socialist rule of law".
-- China will ensure the leadership of CPC in "the socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics".
-- The major tasks are to improve a socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics, in which the Constitution is taken as the core, to strengthen the implementation of the Constitution, to promote administration by law, to speed up building a law-abiding government, to safeguard judicial justice, to improve judicial credibility, to promote the public awareness of rule of law, to enhance the building of a law-based society, to improve team building and to sharpen the CPC's leadership in pushing forward rule of law.
-- To realize the rule of law, the country should be ruled in line with the Constitution.
-- The system to ensure the implementation of the Constitution and to supervise the implementation should be improved.
-- The National People's Congress and its Standing Committee should play a better role in supervising the Constitution's implementation.
-- China will work to build a law-abiding government.
-- A mechanism to examine the legitimacy of major decision-making in governments should be set up, with a lifelong liability accounting system for major decisions and a retrospective mechanism to hold people accountable for wrong decisions.
-- China will promote transparency of government affairs.
-- A mechanism will be set up to record officials who interfere in judicial cases and name them publicly to hold them accountable.
-- The Supreme People's Court will set up circuit courts, and the country will explore establishing cross-administrative region courts and procuratorates, and seek to allow prosecutors to file public interest litigation cases.
-- The country will enhance the protection of human rights in judicial procedures.
-- China will try to recruit lawmakers, judges and prosecutors from qualified lawyers and law experts.
-- The CPC will improve its internal rules and mechanisms.
-- The effectiveness of implementing rule of law will be a significant index in judging the work of officials at various levels and will be added to their performance appraisal system.
-- The People's Liberation Army will promote the rule of law and enforce strict discipline.
-- China will guarantee the practice of "one country, two systems" and promote national reunification in line with laws.
‘Rule of Law’ or ‘Rule by Law’? In China, a Preposition Makes All the Difference
Writing about the annual plenary meetings of the Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership, never an easy task since they usually take place under heavy security in a military-owned hotel, is even more difficult this year.
The problem: how to translate the theme of this year’s meetings, which according to party announcements is 法治 (pronounced “fazhi”), a word composed of characters meaning “law” and “to govern.”
In official media coverage of the meetings, which begin today in Beijing and are scheduled to run through Thursday, the phrase in English has been rendered as “rule of law” – as the official Xinhua news agency did in a Sunday commentary that argued rule of law was “vital” to reforms in a market-oriented economy.
That’s a fairly straightforward-seeming translation, and one that would seem to make sense since one focus of the plenum is on reforms aimed at insulating the country’s courts from political interference.
In fact, China scholars say, it’s not straightforward at all.
“Using ‘rule of law’ is profoundly misleading, and I think intentionally misleading,” says John Delury, a China historian at Yonsei University.
The root of the problem is that Chinese phrases often lack prepositions, notes David Moser, academic director at the CET Beijing Chinese language program and author of a celebrated essay on the difficulty of learning Mandarin. In the case of 法治, that phenomenon has led to two similar but distinct translations in Chinese-English dictionaries: “rule of law” and “rule by law.”
“The lexicographers seem not be aware of any distinction, and either ‘of’ or ‘by’ seemed appropriate to them,” Mr. Moser says.
While the two phrases may seem like a flip-of-the-coin for dual-language dictionary editors, they actually have very different connotations, scholars say. “Rule of law,” under which the power of political leaders is constrained by laws and regulations, is generally considered a subset of “rule by law,” says Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language at the University of Pennsylvania.
“’Rule of law’ implies fairness and predictable application,” he says. “’Rule by law’ would include, for example, rule under Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws (Nürnberger Gesetze), which were neither fair nor predictably applied.”
It’s an important distinction in China, where courts, police and prosecutors are controlled by the Communist Party and where the constitution — which guarantees freedom of speech and religion, among other liberties – has been shunted aside when it conflicts with party interests.
The phrase 法治 was coined in the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. by the founders of the Legalist school of political thinkers who were rivals to the Confucians, Yonsei University’s Mr. Delury notes.
“Legalists said we should have an authoritarian, if not despotic system, where everyone has to obey draconian laws and where people are motivated by reward and punishment,” he says. That’s in contrast to Confucians, who believed society should be governed by a virtuous elite.
Chinese dynasties have traditionally featured a mixture of those two ideas – rule by man and rule by law — all the way up until the present day, Mr. Delury says, but the notion that the ruling elite should themselves be restrained by laws has never been seriously considered. For that reason, he suggests a more appropriate translation for 法治 might be “law and order.”
The thrust of this week’s plenum, scholars say, is probably most accurately reflected in a longer phrase official media have used to describe the agenda: 依法治国, or “ruling the country according to law.” That more obviously Legalist formulation dovetails with the nature of the proposed judicial reforms, which aim to give courts independence from local government but still keep them within the cage of Communist Party control.
Mr. Delury is not alone in thinking state media may be intentionally trying to send a different message to foreign readers. “My strong hunch is that official Xinhua translators are savvy about this of/by distinction, and the choice of ‘rule of law’ is a deliberate and careful choice,” Mr. Moser says. “Most foreign readers are probably unaware of the preposition distinction, but for the few sensitive to it, ‘of’ sends the right message.”
‘Rule of Law’ or ‘Rule by Law’? In China, a Preposition Makes All the Difference - China Real Time Report - WSJ
=========================
China Tries to Hold On to Judges by Offering Freer Hand
BEIJING—When a senior judge in south China decided to step down at the end of the National Day holiday this month, he took the rare step of posting a resignation letter online.
“I don’t know when I started to feel less and less able to handle cases,” the judge, Liu Shibi, a 20-year court veteran, wrote on the social-media site Weibo.
“So much time wasted on political study, the transmission of new attitudes, reflecting on important speeches, evaluating statistics and the rest,” he complained. “Why not waste it on other useless things: daydreaming in the spring sun, howling at the moon, getting drunk with friends in a field of flowers?”
ENLARGE
Mr. Liu’s willingness to speak publicly makes him unusual among Chinese judges, but his quitting doesn’t. Judges are leaving in droves, fed up by heavy caseloads, low professional standards, bad pay and government interference, according to former judges, legal scholars and state media reports.
Dealing with the disillusionment in the judiciary is one challenge for President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders going into a policy meeting that opened Monday in Beijing. Top on their agenda, they have said, is promoting the rule of law.
Some of the four-day Central Committee meeting is likely to be taken up with deciding the fate of retired security czar Zhou Yongkang , the highest-level target of Mr. Xi’s popular anticorruption campaign. Beijing has tried to use Mr. Zhou’s case to send a message that no one is above the law.
Legal scholars say it is the first time such a conclave has been devoted to the rule of law. The intent, they say, is to create a more efficient and responsive way to deal with civil and commercial disputes.
Don’t expect a Western-style legal system to emerge, former court officials say; Chinese leaders and party-controlled media have rejected that. The legal scholars say Beijing doesn’t want the party’s authority infringed on in cases where its political interests are at stake.
But Chinese society is roiled by proliferating disputes—strikes, protests and other large-scale demonstrations estimated to number more than 100,000 a year. In addition, masses throng central and provincial governments seeking redress for perceived official wrongdoing.
Chinese leaders see the advantage of a legal system publicly viewed as fair enough to credibly resolve the disputes, some legal scholars said.
“They are very clear on the benefits of rule of law, or at least some strong system of rules, as a way to resolve disputes. They know it is good for the party in the long run,” said Xu Xin, a law professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “But it isn’t clear they can do what they need to do.”
Judges play a crucial role in this. Beijing will need to give them enough independence to be convincing enforcers of rules, without feeling they can rule against the party with impunity, Mr. Xu and others said.
The exodus of judges from the bench is both a symptom and a cause of many of the court system’s problems, legal scholars say.
In March, the Liberation Daily newspaper reported that an average of 67 judges had resigned annually from Shanghai courts since 2009, including 74 last year.
The party’s Central Politics and Law Commission reported last year that more 1,600 judges had resigned in Guangdong, a wealthy province abutting Hong Kong, over the previous five years; and 1,850 judges resigned in Jiangsu province from 2008 to 2013. Other jurisdictions, including Beijing, have also reported large numbers of resignations.
As a result, the number of judges in China has remained virtually flat since 2007, while the number of cases handled by the courts rose almost 50% over the period to 12.9 million in 2013, according to the Supreme People’s Court.
Mr. Liu, the judge who posted his resignation letter online this month, began his career as a village-level judge in his hometown in Yunnan province, shortly after graduating from college in 1993. In 2001, after circulating through local criminal and administrative courts, he was elected as a representative to the local legislature. Three years later, he was promoted to the provincial court in Guangdong as a criminal judge.
Convincing experienced judges like Mr. Liu to stay is a focus of the party’s proposed legal reforms.
But reached by The Wall Street Journal, after his resignation had been approved, Mr. Liu said there was little incentive to keep going.
“A judge who works on 100 cases a year earns the same salary as one who works five cases,” he said. In addition, “the more you work, the higher the chances your rulings will be overturned by the higher court.”
ENLARGE
Police pick up leaflets thrown near Tiananmen Square on Monday, the opening day of a party plenum. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Party leaders this week are expected to review and endorse a pilot program, already under way in Shanghai, that grants judges special bureaucratic status distinct from other civil servants, raises their salaries, and gives them more power over trials and decisions, according to a summary published by state media in July.
The program aims to minimize the interference from local officials that judges find so maddening by transferring power over lower-court budgets and personnel up to provincial authorities, according to state media summaries.
Unlike in the U.S., Chinese judges typically come to the courts straight from law school, ascending to the bench after only a couple of years as clerks. They often move on to careers as lawyers later.
That is an improvement from a decade ago, when judges were mainly retired military or police with little or no legal training.
However, the pay for young judges is low, typically in the range of 50,000 to 70,000 yuan ($8,100 to $11,430) a year, former judges say. That makes them subject to pressure from local officials and soft targets for corruption.
“The pressure may not be direct, but you feel it,” Jiang Yangbing, who resigned in June after eight years as a judge in Guangdong. He said interference was particularly common in cases related to land and education.
“For judges, food, clothing, shelter and money all come from the local government, and you have countless ties with them.”
One issue judges and legal scholars fear will not be addressed is the requirement for judges to consider “social stability” when deciding even minor cases.
“You have to satisfy the party, satisfy society, satisfy the people, satisfy the defendant and the plaintiff. It’s incredibly hard to pull off,” said Mr. Jiang.
Mr. Liu gave an example: “Sometimes the party who loses the case threatens to jump from a building, and the judge can be suspended for not being able to settle with them.”
ENLARGE
Former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, seen here in 2012, is being investigated for alleged corruption, the party said in August. Reuters
Pervasive interference also contributes to widespread public skepticism about the courts, said Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York University and one of the first foreign lawyers to practice in China.
“Courts are the weakest branch of government in China,” Mr. Cohen said. Court officials, he said, “are suspected, quite rightly, of behaving like other government officials, rather than being a separate group of holier-than-thou people who are insulated from all the usual influences.”
Insulating judges from some official meddling would represent significant progress for judicial independence while allowing party higher-ups to still keep courts in check, the legal scholars said.
“Most of the time delivering justice doesn’t conflict with the party’s interests,” said Jianwei Fang, a former judge in Zhejiang and now a lawyer in Hong Kong for the firm Davis Polk. “The interests of the [local] official aren’t the interests of the party, and for the party to have the court be the final decision maker is a good thing.”
Older judges, like Mr. Liu, may take more convincing, having seen little lasting impact from previous efforts.
“Endless reform, endless pilot programs, endless bother,” Mr. Liu wrote. “The standardization, professionalization and specialization of judges all still out of reach.”
— Fanfan Wang contributed to this article.
Write to Josh Chin at josh.chin@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Jianwei Fang is a former judge in Zhejiang and now a lawyer in Hong Kong for the firm Davis Polk. An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled his name as Jianwai Fang.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-tries-to-hold-on-to-judges-by-offering-freer-hand-1413822462
Writing about the annual plenary meetings of the Chinese Communist Party’s top leadership, never an easy task since they usually take place under heavy security in a military-owned hotel, is even more difficult this year.
The problem: how to translate the theme of this year’s meetings, which according to party announcements is 法治 (pronounced “fazhi”), a word composed of characters meaning “law” and “to govern.”
In official media coverage of the meetings, which begin today in Beijing and are scheduled to run through Thursday, the phrase in English has been rendered as “rule of law” – as the official Xinhua news agency did in a Sunday commentary that argued rule of law was “vital” to reforms in a market-oriented economy.
That’s a fairly straightforward-seeming translation, and one that would seem to make sense since one focus of the plenum is on reforms aimed at insulating the country’s courts from political interference.
In fact, China scholars say, it’s not straightforward at all.
“Using ‘rule of law’ is profoundly misleading, and I think intentionally misleading,” says John Delury, a China historian at Yonsei University.
The root of the problem is that Chinese phrases often lack prepositions, notes David Moser, academic director at the CET Beijing Chinese language program and author of a celebrated essay on the difficulty of learning Mandarin. In the case of 法治, that phenomenon has led to two similar but distinct translations in Chinese-English dictionaries: “rule of law” and “rule by law.”
“The lexicographers seem not be aware of any distinction, and either ‘of’ or ‘by’ seemed appropriate to them,” Mr. Moser says.
While the two phrases may seem like a flip-of-the-coin for dual-language dictionary editors, they actually have very different connotations, scholars say. “Rule of law,” under which the power of political leaders is constrained by laws and regulations, is generally considered a subset of “rule by law,” says Victor Mair, a professor of Chinese language at the University of Pennsylvania.
“’Rule of law’ implies fairness and predictable application,” he says. “’Rule by law’ would include, for example, rule under Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws (Nürnberger Gesetze), which were neither fair nor predictably applied.”
It’s an important distinction in China, where courts, police and prosecutors are controlled by the Communist Party and where the constitution — which guarantees freedom of speech and religion, among other liberties – has been shunted aside when it conflicts with party interests.
The phrase 法治 was coined in the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. by the founders of the Legalist school of political thinkers who were rivals to the Confucians, Yonsei University’s Mr. Delury notes.
“Legalists said we should have an authoritarian, if not despotic system, where everyone has to obey draconian laws and where people are motivated by reward and punishment,” he says. That’s in contrast to Confucians, who believed society should be governed by a virtuous elite.
Chinese dynasties have traditionally featured a mixture of those two ideas – rule by man and rule by law — all the way up until the present day, Mr. Delury says, but the notion that the ruling elite should themselves be restrained by laws has never been seriously considered. For that reason, he suggests a more appropriate translation for 法治 might be “law and order.”
The thrust of this week’s plenum, scholars say, is probably most accurately reflected in a longer phrase official media have used to describe the agenda: 依法治国, or “ruling the country according to law.” That more obviously Legalist formulation dovetails with the nature of the proposed judicial reforms, which aim to give courts independence from local government but still keep them within the cage of Communist Party control.
Mr. Delury is not alone in thinking state media may be intentionally trying to send a different message to foreign readers. “My strong hunch is that official Xinhua translators are savvy about this of/by distinction, and the choice of ‘rule of law’ is a deliberate and careful choice,” Mr. Moser says. “Most foreign readers are probably unaware of the preposition distinction, but for the few sensitive to it, ‘of’ sends the right message.”
‘Rule of Law’ or ‘Rule by Law’? In China, a Preposition Makes All the Difference - China Real Time Report - WSJ
=========================
China Tries to Hold On to Judges by Offering Freer Hand
BEIJING—When a senior judge in south China decided to step down at the end of the National Day holiday this month, he took the rare step of posting a resignation letter online.
“I don’t know when I started to feel less and less able to handle cases,” the judge, Liu Shibi, a 20-year court veteran, wrote on the social-media site Weibo.
“So much time wasted on political study, the transmission of new attitudes, reflecting on important speeches, evaluating statistics and the rest,” he complained. “Why not waste it on other useless things: daydreaming in the spring sun, howling at the moon, getting drunk with friends in a field of flowers?”
ENLARGE
Mr. Liu’s willingness to speak publicly makes him unusual among Chinese judges, but his quitting doesn’t. Judges are leaving in droves, fed up by heavy caseloads, low professional standards, bad pay and government interference, according to former judges, legal scholars and state media reports.
Dealing with the disillusionment in the judiciary is one challenge for President Xi Jinping and other Communist Party leaders going into a policy meeting that opened Monday in Beijing. Top on their agenda, they have said, is promoting the rule of law.
Some of the four-day Central Committee meeting is likely to be taken up with deciding the fate of retired security czar Zhou Yongkang , the highest-level target of Mr. Xi’s popular anticorruption campaign. Beijing has tried to use Mr. Zhou’s case to send a message that no one is above the law.
Legal scholars say it is the first time such a conclave has been devoted to the rule of law. The intent, they say, is to create a more efficient and responsive way to deal with civil and commercial disputes.
Don’t expect a Western-style legal system to emerge, former court officials say; Chinese leaders and party-controlled media have rejected that. The legal scholars say Beijing doesn’t want the party’s authority infringed on in cases where its political interests are at stake.
But Chinese society is roiled by proliferating disputes—strikes, protests and other large-scale demonstrations estimated to number more than 100,000 a year. In addition, masses throng central and provincial governments seeking redress for perceived official wrongdoing.
Chinese leaders see the advantage of a legal system publicly viewed as fair enough to credibly resolve the disputes, some legal scholars said.
“They are very clear on the benefits of rule of law, or at least some strong system of rules, as a way to resolve disputes. They know it is good for the party in the long run,” said Xu Xin, a law professor at the Beijing Institute of Technology. “But it isn’t clear they can do what they need to do.”
Judges play a crucial role in this. Beijing will need to give them enough independence to be convincing enforcers of rules, without feeling they can rule against the party with impunity, Mr. Xu and others said.
The exodus of judges from the bench is both a symptom and a cause of many of the court system’s problems, legal scholars say.
In March, the Liberation Daily newspaper reported that an average of 67 judges had resigned annually from Shanghai courts since 2009, including 74 last year.
The party’s Central Politics and Law Commission reported last year that more 1,600 judges had resigned in Guangdong, a wealthy province abutting Hong Kong, over the previous five years; and 1,850 judges resigned in Jiangsu province from 2008 to 2013. Other jurisdictions, including Beijing, have also reported large numbers of resignations.
As a result, the number of judges in China has remained virtually flat since 2007, while the number of cases handled by the courts rose almost 50% over the period to 12.9 million in 2013, according to the Supreme People’s Court.
Mr. Liu, the judge who posted his resignation letter online this month, began his career as a village-level judge in his hometown in Yunnan province, shortly after graduating from college in 1993. In 2001, after circulating through local criminal and administrative courts, he was elected as a representative to the local legislature. Three years later, he was promoted to the provincial court in Guangdong as a criminal judge.
Convincing experienced judges like Mr. Liu to stay is a focus of the party’s proposed legal reforms.
But reached by The Wall Street Journal, after his resignation had been approved, Mr. Liu said there was little incentive to keep going.
“A judge who works on 100 cases a year earns the same salary as one who works five cases,” he said. In addition, “the more you work, the higher the chances your rulings will be overturned by the higher court.”
ENLARGE
Police pick up leaflets thrown near Tiananmen Square on Monday, the opening day of a party plenum. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Party leaders this week are expected to review and endorse a pilot program, already under way in Shanghai, that grants judges special bureaucratic status distinct from other civil servants, raises their salaries, and gives them more power over trials and decisions, according to a summary published by state media in July.
The program aims to minimize the interference from local officials that judges find so maddening by transferring power over lower-court budgets and personnel up to provincial authorities, according to state media summaries.
Unlike in the U.S., Chinese judges typically come to the courts straight from law school, ascending to the bench after only a couple of years as clerks. They often move on to careers as lawyers later.
That is an improvement from a decade ago, when judges were mainly retired military or police with little or no legal training.
However, the pay for young judges is low, typically in the range of 50,000 to 70,000 yuan ($8,100 to $11,430) a year, former judges say. That makes them subject to pressure from local officials and soft targets for corruption.
“The pressure may not be direct, but you feel it,” Jiang Yangbing, who resigned in June after eight years as a judge in Guangdong. He said interference was particularly common in cases related to land and education.
“For judges, food, clothing, shelter and money all come from the local government, and you have countless ties with them.”
One issue judges and legal scholars fear will not be addressed is the requirement for judges to consider “social stability” when deciding even minor cases.
“You have to satisfy the party, satisfy society, satisfy the people, satisfy the defendant and the plaintiff. It’s incredibly hard to pull off,” said Mr. Jiang.
Mr. Liu gave an example: “Sometimes the party who loses the case threatens to jump from a building, and the judge can be suspended for not being able to settle with them.”
ENLARGE
Former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, seen here in 2012, is being investigated for alleged corruption, the party said in August. Reuters
Pervasive interference also contributes to widespread public skepticism about the courts, said Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York University and one of the first foreign lawyers to practice in China.
“Courts are the weakest branch of government in China,” Mr. Cohen said. Court officials, he said, “are suspected, quite rightly, of behaving like other government officials, rather than being a separate group of holier-than-thou people who are insulated from all the usual influences.”
Insulating judges from some official meddling would represent significant progress for judicial independence while allowing party higher-ups to still keep courts in check, the legal scholars said.
“Most of the time delivering justice doesn’t conflict with the party’s interests,” said Jianwei Fang, a former judge in Zhejiang and now a lawyer in Hong Kong for the firm Davis Polk. “The interests of the [local] official aren’t the interests of the party, and for the party to have the court be the final decision maker is a good thing.”
Older judges, like Mr. Liu, may take more convincing, having seen little lasting impact from previous efforts.
“Endless reform, endless pilot programs, endless bother,” Mr. Liu wrote. “The standardization, professionalization and specialization of judges all still out of reach.”
— Fanfan Wang contributed to this article.
Write to Josh Chin at josh.chin@wsj.com
Corrections & Amplifications
Jianwei Fang is a former judge in Zhejiang and now a lawyer in Hong Kong for the firm Davis Polk. An earlier version of this article incorrectly spelled his name as Jianwai Fang.
http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-tries-to-hold-on-to-judges-by-offering-freer-hand-1413822462
TaiShang
ELITE MEMBER
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China invented the concepts of Legalism and Civil Service System and these are ingrained in China's very governance DNA. Thus it has to neither borrow nor copy from the West.
The Western pundits do not really care about whether the Chinese are receiving a fair and speedy justice under equal laws; in the back of their mind is their perennial enemy, the CPC. Anything short of abolishing China's particular governance model will not please them. They simply are yearning for a political system in China which they can, with superior intelligence, spying and manipulation capability, influence China's domestic and foreign governance.
Expert opinion on the Judiciary Reform
Zhu Lijia, Professor of Chinese Academy of Governance
The plenum report will include general information and the essence of the meeting, as well as explain general ideas and reforms concerning "rule of law." The report will also touch upon the disciplinary action on Zhou Yongkang if the issue was addressed during the meeting.
Obstacles are inevitable in any reform process. However, since the 18th CPC National Congress, both China's central government and the public have supported the construction of a China governed by law and the safeguarding of social fairness and justice. The further advancement of the rule of law has a bright future.
Source: Chinanews.com
Xin Ming, professor of Party School of the Central Committee of CPC
Based on reviews of the anti-corruption campaigns since the 18th CPC National Congress, the most distinctive feature is the rule of law, which is important to not only carrying out Party regulations but also national laws. The current anti-corruption campaigns start with temporary solutions that gradually become institutionalized and normalized in the process.
Source: China Discipline Inspection and Supervision News
Li Bin, Commentator
The improvement of the law does not necessarily mean the rule of law has been implemented. The core of law lies in its implementation and the rule of law aims to realize good governance. Rule of law is undoubtedly a must in realizing a modernized state governance system. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, a series of sessions have outlined the principle of rule of law. The upcoming session will further map out a detailed path for the next stage.
Source: haiwainet.cn
Wang Liming, Executive Vice President of the Renmin
UniversityThe CPC Central Committee has shown its emphasis on rule of law by naming it the theme two months ahead of the upcoming session. The fourth plenum would outline the top-level strategic plan to advance the rule of law with a comprehensive approach and speed up the building of a socialist country under the rule of law. Detailed plans would provide a clear path to guide us to reach that goal.
Source: Xinhua
Hu Jianmiao, Professor of Chinese Academy of Governance
The upcoming session focuses on advancing the rule of law, which is to further implement and deepen the mission of "building up China governed by law" outlined in the third plenary session. This is a timely decision in line with the people's will and meets the need to modernize the government. The session will further enrich and update socialist rule of law theory with Chinese characteristics. Meanwhile, it will also boost the building of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics and be a milestone in China's history of rule of law.
***
CPC officials ordered to stop meddling judicial cases
China will establish a system in which officials will be given demerits or held accountable if they are found interfering in judicial cases.
According to a communique released after a key meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Thursday, officials will be criticized in public notices if they influence judicial activities or meddle in a particular case.
The communique, adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, hails justice as the "lifeline" of rule of law.
Judicial injustice can inflict a "lethal damage" to social justice, reads the communique.
China will improve the system in which judicial powers are exercised and strengthen supervision over judicial activities, it says.
The Supreme People's Court will set up circuit courts to facilitate the handling of judicial cases filed by the public from local communities. The country will explore establishing courts and procuratorates with jurisdictions spanning across different administrative regions, and building a system in which prosecuting bodies can institute public interest litigations, according to the communique.
Trial judges and procurators will assume lifelong accountability to their cases, and public participation will be ensured in judicial procedures, it reads.
No illegal mitigation of a sentence is allowed, and the handling of judicial cases should not be influenced by personal connections, favors or bribery, according to the communique.
The Western pundits do not really care about whether the Chinese are receiving a fair and speedy justice under equal laws; in the back of their mind is their perennial enemy, the CPC. Anything short of abolishing China's particular governance model will not please them. They simply are yearning for a political system in China which they can, with superior intelligence, spying and manipulation capability, influence China's domestic and foreign governance.
Expert opinion on the Judiciary Reform
Zhu Lijia, Professor of Chinese Academy of Governance
The plenum report will include general information and the essence of the meeting, as well as explain general ideas and reforms concerning "rule of law." The report will also touch upon the disciplinary action on Zhou Yongkang if the issue was addressed during the meeting.
Obstacles are inevitable in any reform process. However, since the 18th CPC National Congress, both China's central government and the public have supported the construction of a China governed by law and the safeguarding of social fairness and justice. The further advancement of the rule of law has a bright future.
Source: Chinanews.com
Xin Ming, professor of Party School of the Central Committee of CPC
Based on reviews of the anti-corruption campaigns since the 18th CPC National Congress, the most distinctive feature is the rule of law, which is important to not only carrying out Party regulations but also national laws. The current anti-corruption campaigns start with temporary solutions that gradually become institutionalized and normalized in the process.
Source: China Discipline Inspection and Supervision News
Li Bin, Commentator
The improvement of the law does not necessarily mean the rule of law has been implemented. The core of law lies in its implementation and the rule of law aims to realize good governance. Rule of law is undoubtedly a must in realizing a modernized state governance system. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, a series of sessions have outlined the principle of rule of law. The upcoming session will further map out a detailed path for the next stage.
Source: haiwainet.cn
Wang Liming, Executive Vice President of the Renmin
UniversityThe CPC Central Committee has shown its emphasis on rule of law by naming it the theme two months ahead of the upcoming session. The fourth plenum would outline the top-level strategic plan to advance the rule of law with a comprehensive approach and speed up the building of a socialist country under the rule of law. Detailed plans would provide a clear path to guide us to reach that goal.
Source: Xinhua
Hu Jianmiao, Professor of Chinese Academy of Governance
The upcoming session focuses on advancing the rule of law, which is to further implement and deepen the mission of "building up China governed by law" outlined in the third plenary session. This is a timely decision in line with the people's will and meets the need to modernize the government. The session will further enrich and update socialist rule of law theory with Chinese characteristics. Meanwhile, it will also boost the building of a socialist legal system with Chinese characteristics and be a milestone in China's history of rule of law.
***
CPC officials ordered to stop meddling judicial cases
China will establish a system in which officials will be given demerits or held accountable if they are found interfering in judicial cases.
According to a communique released after a key meeting of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on Thursday, officials will be criticized in public notices if they influence judicial activities or meddle in a particular case.
The communique, adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, hails justice as the "lifeline" of rule of law.
Judicial injustice can inflict a "lethal damage" to social justice, reads the communique.
China will improve the system in which judicial powers are exercised and strengthen supervision over judicial activities, it says.
The Supreme People's Court will set up circuit courts to facilitate the handling of judicial cases filed by the public from local communities. The country will explore establishing courts and procuratorates with jurisdictions spanning across different administrative regions, and building a system in which prosecuting bodies can institute public interest litigations, according to the communique.
Trial judges and procurators will assume lifelong accountability to their cases, and public participation will be ensured in judicial procedures, it reads.
No illegal mitigation of a sentence is allowed, and the handling of judicial cases should not be influenced by personal connections, favors or bribery, according to the communique.
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TaiShang
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Here I quote comment by 强大统一的中国:
"Institutionalizing a fair and just system of socialist laws is revolutionary, because such an institutionalized system of law, will greatly strengthen the socialist state system, rather than weaken it, or move society in a reactionary liberal bourgeois direction. Strengthening an institutionalized system of socialist law, is the natural part of a continuing process of socialist consolidation and modernization - carried forth since 1949.
The law is an instrument of the State. Rule of socialist law does not move society in a petty divided bourgeois direction. The rule of law does not imply a ideologically neutral, pluralistic bourgeois state, which merely acts as a mediator between various free floating competing factions in society. The State and the society, constitute a single unified whole. Industry groups, cultural consortiums, trade unions, and individual interests - must be subordinated to the interests of the State. Law, Society, and Individuals - cannot be viewed as independent agents, seperate and apart from the State.
Westerners have an unscientific understanding of the word, "revolutionary". It does not imply some romantic bourgeois notion of rebellion or unrest - the term has a very precise, technical, and scientific definition. Something is "revolutionary" - if it advances socio-technological progress, along the general laws of historical development.
Capitalism is revolutionary, only, relative to old world feudalism. Mass agricultural feudalism is revolutionary, relative to nomatic hunter -gathering. Agricultural feudalism, enables the development of permanent human settlements and hence the rise of major civilizations, from the Nile to Yangtze River basins - nomatic herding does not. Agricultural feudalism is a major leap forward, relative to nomatic modes of subsistence. What is "revolutionary" and "reactionary" is very precise, technical, and scientific."
"Institutionalizing a fair and just system of socialist laws is revolutionary, because such an institutionalized system of law, will greatly strengthen the socialist state system, rather than weaken it, or move society in a reactionary liberal bourgeois direction. Strengthening an institutionalized system of socialist law, is the natural part of a continuing process of socialist consolidation and modernization - carried forth since 1949.
The law is an instrument of the State. Rule of socialist law does not move society in a petty divided bourgeois direction. The rule of law does not imply a ideologically neutral, pluralistic bourgeois state, which merely acts as a mediator between various free floating competing factions in society. The State and the society, constitute a single unified whole. Industry groups, cultural consortiums, trade unions, and individual interests - must be subordinated to the interests of the State. Law, Society, and Individuals - cannot be viewed as independent agents, seperate and apart from the State.
Westerners have an unscientific understanding of the word, "revolutionary". It does not imply some romantic bourgeois notion of rebellion or unrest - the term has a very precise, technical, and scientific definition. Something is "revolutionary" - if it advances socio-technological progress, along the general laws of historical development.
Capitalism is revolutionary, only, relative to old world feudalism. Mass agricultural feudalism is revolutionary, relative to nomatic hunter -gathering. Agricultural feudalism, enables the development of permanent human settlements and hence the rise of major civilizations, from the Nile to Yangtze River basins - nomatic herding does not. Agricultural feudalism is a major leap forward, relative to nomatic modes of subsistence. What is "revolutionary" and "reactionary" is very precise, technical, and scientific."
Hi @TaiShang
This is definitely very unique to the East Asian cultural analytics. Westerners tend to engage in context-independent and analytic perceptual processes by focusing on a salient object independently of its context, whereas East Asians (Japanese, Chinese, Koreans) will engage in context-dependent and holistic perceptual processes by attending to the relationship between the object and the context in which the object is located. In regards to China’s legalist perception of the status of Law and the State, there definitely is a paradigm shift to the western concept of government being part yet independent of the people. In East Asian societies (Japan, China), Government (Seifu) is the head, paternal, and holistically comprehensive in its mandate ; the people are the subject, yet intertwined in government’s role. Its definitely interesting how we East Asians take some aspects of political theories that are foreign based, and apply it into the local context. As Japan took some concepts of western democracy and merged it with our established Imperial Monarchical System, and made it ‘adapt’ to our culture, so too must the Chinese take and implement some aspects of foreign political theories , systems, and make it adapt into the overall Chinese Political Milieu. In order to succeed in China, it has to fit the Chinese model. The mere fact that China’s Government even attenuated for legal revisions , legal reform is positive news for many of us Japanese, who have vast economic cooperation with China and Chinese.
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