Week 2

• Minzner, “Legal Reform in the Xi Jinping Era,” 2015
• Liebman, “Legal Reform: China’s Law Stability Paradox,” 2014
• Qianfan Zhang, “Judicial Reform in China,” China’s Socialist Rule of Law Reforms Under Xi Jinping, 2016
• Ya-Wen Lei, “The Chinese State’s Turn to Law and Rights,” Chapter 3, The Contentious Public Sphere, 2017

the four parts of Zhang’s “judicial syndrome”: 不专业、不独立、地方保护盛行、腐败猖獗 (pg. 18).

Liebman: Courts in recent years have welcomed greater oversight by people’s congresses, have increased roles for laypeople in hearing cases, and have emphasized public opinion in court decisions - also efforts to put opinions online and to make courts more accessible to litigants in rural areas.

“five years of retrogression” (bottom of p.26 从09年到13年) = “turn against law” under Wang Shengjun/王胜俊 in Minzner.

highlights of the fourth five-year plan (2014-18): 司法独立、法官负责、公开，上海作为试点

Manifestations of China’s “turn against law” according to Minzner: 从职业化转向大众化、从审判转向调解、法律无情叙事、强调以法庭维稳、打压维权律师、倡导党高于法、命地方官员压住地方纠纷

Liebman: China’s “law-stability paradox” – Having devoted impressive resources to constructing a legal system in the 1980s and 1990s, the Chinese party state retreated from using the system in the face of new social problems in the 2000s. (context: late 90s punctuated by widespread protest and petitioning上访 ”black jail“; early 2000s policy emphasis on 建设和谐社会; coincided with the turn against law toward populist legality)

“emphasis on compensation and negotiated outcomes in criminal cases” (Liebman, 99)

Liebman: the “three supremes” (p.101) - the supremacy of the party’s business, the supremacy of popular interests, and the supremacy of the constitution and law

---