Rule of Law in China: Past, Present, and Future (Excerpt)

• Author: Carl Minzner

The conclusion of the Gu Kailai trial recently prompted an outpouring of interest in what the case might signal for the direction of rule of law and legal reform in China.

As some have already pointed out, the answer is actually . . . nothing. As is well known, the Chinese legal and political systems are deeply intertwined. It therefore came as no surprise that a high-profile murder trial involving the wife of a former Politburo member was almost certainly decided at the top levels of Chinese Communist Party long before the case was brought before a judge. Indeed, it would have been surprising if it had been otherwise.

Instead, the critical rule-of-law story in China is a different one. Specifically - the trend of recent years in which central authorities have turned against legal reforms they themselves had launched at the end of the 20th century - reforms that emphasized the roles of law, lawyers, and courts in resolving a wide range of ordinary citizens’ grievances, and in helping in the daily governance of China- and whether this turn against law will continue under the new leadership.

State rhetoric has also shifted alongside the actual changes in the legal system. In the 1990’s and early 2000’s, for example, officials emphasized the need to build the rule of law in China and borrow concepts from foreign legal systems to do so. Now they speak of defending the “socialist system of laws with Chinese characteristics” and stress the fundamental differences between China and other countries.

Since 2006, new political campaigns have proliferated in courts and government institutions. These reemphasize the supremacy of the Communist Party and warn against the infiltration of “Western” rule-of-law concepts. Indeed, even the content of the national bar exam has been altered to reflect these changes.

Personnel changes have also swept through the Chinese judiciary. In 2008, Party authorities replaced the outgoing head of the Supreme People’s Court (strongly identified with many of the 1990s-era legal reforms) with a Party political-legal cadre whose main prior career experience had been his time serving as a provincial public security chief.

The work of the courts has changed as well. Since 2003, Chinese authorities have moved away from court trials according to law, which were heavily emphasized in the 1990’s as the preferred means for resolving disputes. In their place they have revived Maoist-style mediation practices. And they have revived...