Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Supreme law in China?

Dan Harris, at China Law Blog, identifies the writer, Jerome A. Cohen, as someone "widely considered a leading figure in Chinese law." Harris also says the article is "well worth the read."

It certainly fits with the consideration most courses give to China's developing legal system.

A just legal system

"Over the past 30 years, the Chinese Communist Party has adopted - albeit haltingly - many of the norms and institutions required for a formal legal system...

"Reforming the system - ending political interference in the courts, uprooting the widespread corruption in the judiciary, overcoming local protectionism and, above all, eradicating the corrosive effects of "guanxi," the network of personal relations that is generally more influential than laws and rules - will be difficult.

"Yet Chinese experts have reached consensus about the steps that must be taken. What is lacking is the sort of strong support for legal reforms at the highest levels of the Party...

"Moreover, the rapid economic and social development of the country - which has brought better education, more mobility, more reporting about the law, more TV and radio shows featuring legal dramas - has created a huge demand for formal adjudication of disputes.

"But despite routine calls for strengthening the 'socialist rule of law' and the demands of rapid economic and social development, the Party has so far avoided the bold reforms that a genuine rule of law would require. Such reforms would, at a minimum, demand that the Party surrender its power to dictate decisions in individual court cases and place the Party and government under the law, not above it..."

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