China’s Courts: Restricted Reform

Liebman, Benjamin L.

doi:10.4324/9781315091976-8

Cited by 13 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…For research on Chinese law and politics, this study is groundbreaking in at least two aspects. First, it brings in the key variable of gender to the proliferating scholarship on Chinese courts (He ; He and Su ; Kinkel ; Kinkel and Hurst ; Li ; Liebman ). With the large cohorts of women entering the judiciary in recent years, the percentages of women at both mid‐level and high‐level leadership positions will continue to rise.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to their judicial ranks, all judges have administrative ranks like state bureaucrats in other government offices. As a result, Party and administrative influence in judicial decision making is prevalent in the daily work of judges (He ; Li ; Liebman ; S. Liu ). Furthermore, sophisticated systems of cadre evaluation and judicial discipline have been established in recent years to institutionalize the bureaucratic control on judicial practice (Kinkel ; Kinkel and Hurst ; Minzner ).…”

Section: Dual‐track Promotion: the Process Of Vertical Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, an alternative explanation that we have not examined so far is the gender and corruption hypothesis. Given that judicial corruption has been a serious problem for Chinese courts since the 1990s (Liebman ; Li ), are female judges promoted to mid‐level leadership positions because they are less corrupt? Or, conversely, are some male judges promoted to high‐level leadership positions because they are more corrupt and thus developed closer political connections with local leaders?…”

Section: Gender and Judicial Corruptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Elastic Ceiling: Gender and Professional Career in Chinese Courts

Chen¹,

Jia-hui²,

Liu³

2017

Law Soc Rev

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Since the 1990s, the number of women in Chinese courts has been increasing steadily. Many women judges have risen to mid-level leadership positions, such as division chiefs and vice-chiefs, in the judicial bureaucracy. However, it remains difficult for women to be promoted to high-level leadership positions, such as vice-presidents and presidents. What explains the stratified patterns of career mobility for women in Chinese courts? In this article, we argue that two social processes are at work in shaping the structural patterns of gender inequality: dual-track promotion and reverse attrition. Dual-track promotion is dominated by a masculine and corrupt judicial culture on the political track that prevents women from obtaining high-level promotions, but still allows them to rise to mid-level leadership positions on the professional track based on their expertise and work performance. Reverse attrition enables women to take vacant mid-level positions left by men who exit the judiciary to pursue other careers. Taken together, the vertical and horizontal mobility of judges in their career development presents a processual logic to gender inequality and shapes women's structural positions in Chinese courts, a phenomenon that we term the "elastic ceiling."

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dual‐track Promotion: the Process Of Vertical Mobilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gender and Judicial Corruptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Elastic Ceiling: Gender and Professional Career in Chinese Courts

Chen¹,

Jia-hui²,

Liu³

2017

Law Soc Rev

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“…Collective independence means that the judiciary is able to function as a collective entity without inference from other parties, which can only be guaranteed by adequately funded and (Jones, 1985). In addition, Chinese judges are not Liebman, 2007). The law has started to regulate both the state and the individuals.…”

Section: Courts In Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This kind of top-down reform initiated by the Party predetermines its limitation, that is, it is a restricted reform and the court continues to be subject to the Party and the government (Liebman, 2007).…”

Section: Courts In Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The media, the public and the courts under Chinese governmentality

Liu¹

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Recent years have witnessed an increase in the phenomenon of highly publicized trial in China. There have been studies exploring the relationship between the media and the political system, especially the judicial system in China. Scholarship on this topic has shown that the Chinese media are playing an increasingly important role in sustaining the regime. Specifically, they are becoming more influential over the outcomes of court cases and have developed to one of the most important actors in China's legal system (Wang&Tan, 2008; Liebman, 2005, 2010; Stockmann & Gallagher, 2011). The media-court relationship provides insights into China's politics, and more importantly, reflects the logics and rationale behind the Communist Party-state's governance. This thesis aims to contribute to existing knowledge on the functioning of the Chinese judicial system using as a case study, the trial of Yao Jiaxin, a young man prosecuted for a particularly heinous murder. This case study explores the dynamic relationship between the media and the courts in China under the framework of the "governmentality" of the Chinese Communist Party. The findings showed that the relationship between the media and the courts is changing, and the public has become an important actor in this relationship. As such, both the media and the courts are now more responsive to public opinion. This new dynamic is attributed to China's evolution to a governmentality of "soft authoritarianism," which is enabled by the Internet, iii mainly online forums and social media platforms in China. However, Yao's case also suggested some limitations of China's governmentality. First, social actors including the media and the court are facing challenges in achieving a balance between being responsive to the public and maintaining their professional integrity. Secondly, "soft" authoritarianism is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. Individual interests are expected to be sacrificed for the sake of collective interests under this governmentality. iv

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The Language of Rights and the Politics of Law: Perspectives on China’s Last Legal Ditch Struggle

Choukroune

2015

Int J Semiot Law

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Since Xi Jinping has taken office in 2012, China's political repression has only but intensified so that the regime is definitively turning away from the 1990s legal reforms and the many expectations that followed in terms of rule of law and other rights fostering. In replacing these recent developments in a larger perspective including that of a "socialist harmonious society", which had already shaded a particular light on Chinese reforms, this article proposes to envisage contemporary Chinese legal culture in an evolutionary and theoretical framework. In doing so, it stresses the tensions between a language of rights now fully integrated by the Chinese citizens and the politics of law used, in a last legal ditch struggle, by the Chinese Communist Party as a tool for social stability in disciplining the people by all means including by the threat of its very legal creations. It then concludes in reflecting upon the legal culture emerging out of this great divide between the people and the State.

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China’s Courts: Restricted Reform

Cited by 13 publications

References 4 publications

The Elastic Ceiling: Gender and Professional Career in Chinese Courts

The Elastic Ceiling: Gender and Professional Career in Chinese Courts

The media, the public and the courts under Chinese governmentality

The Language of Rights and the Politics of Law: Perspectives on China’s Last Legal Ditch Struggle

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