The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society’s conference on Judicial Reforms in China was held at L’Institut des Hautes Etudes sur la Justice (l’IHEJ), Paris on 13-14 December. It brought together a selection of academics and practitioners from around the world to provide global and regional perspectives on China’s emerging judicial reforms, as well as a panel of four Chinese judges to provide firsthand accounts of the judiciary in China. The judges attended courtesy of our partner organization for the event, Sciences Po.
The conference opened with a lecture by Judge Antoine Garapon, Secrétaire Général de l'IHEJ, who advocated a pragmatic approach to promoting judicial integrity which, while acknowledging the validity of global best practices, also takes account of local politics and culture.
The following day took the form of a workshop and roundtable at which the policy proposals of the participants were presented, analyzed, and discussed from a variety of comparative perspectives.
Stéphanie Balme, a senior research fellow who runs the Sciences Po in China programme untitled ‘Justice, Law and Society in China’, argued for a more centralized judicial system in China. By showing the lack of resources and respect afforded local courts, she demonstrated how the Chinese judiciary is institutionally dependent on legislative and executive bodies, but also identified recent indications of improvements through budget reform and increased transparency.
Fu Yulin, associate professor at the School of Law of Peking University, provided an interesting perspective on China’s current stage of progression towards judicial independence, with her contention that since the judicial system in China is not yet recognized by the society as an important, powerful body in its own right, it is too soon to invest the judiciary with the power to rule on politically sensitive issues, since it is not strong enough institutionally to withstand pressure from the Communist Party on such decisions.
Procurator Zhang Ningyu from Beijing pointed to the increased transparency of recent years afforded by an opening up to the media, but noted that this could have negative consequences when the media influenced cases in a manner that made impartial decisions difficult.
Judge Chai LingLing from Zhejiang Province noted that the principle difficulty for judges in China was not political influence on decisions, but the sheer volume of cases to be decided upon. She questioned the Supreme Court motto of efficiency and impartiality, since the attempts to improve transparency by increasing the number of trials that are open to the public (even for relatively minor cases) had also increased the workload of the judges, to the detriment of the quality of the judgments delivered.
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Notes for editors
The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society is an independent institution affiliated with the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Oxford.
Founded in 2005, the mission of the Foundation is to study, reflect on and promote an understanding of the role that law plays in society. This is achieved by analysing issues of contemporary interest and importance through our three programmes:
• The Social Contract Revisited
• Courts and the Making of Public Policy
• Rule of Law in China: Chinese Law and Business
The Foundation draws on the work of scholars and researchers, and aims to make its work easily accessible to practitioners and professionals, whether in government, business, or the law.
For more information, please contact Phil Dines on
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