China's Trapped Transition_ The Limits of Developmental Autocracy - Minxin Pei [142]
75 Lubman, Bird in a Cage, 298.
76 Lubman, “Bird in a Cage,” 383-423.
77 See Gong Xiangrui, ed., Fazhi de lixiang yu xianshi (The Ideal and Reality of the Rule of Law) (Beijing: Zhongguo zhengfa daxue chubanshe, 1993); also see Minxin Pci, “Citizens v. Mandarins: Administrative Litigation in China,” The China Quarterly152 (1997): 832-862; Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, “Suing the Local State: Administrative Litigation in Rural China,” The ChinaJournal 51 (2004) : 75-95; for a study of commercial disputes in China, see Minxin Pei, “Legal Reform and Secure Commercial Transactions: Evidence from China,” in Peter Murrell, ed., Assessing the Vale of Law in Transition Economies (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001), 180-210.
78 Of the 220,000 judges in the country in 2003, 82,764 had college degrees and 3,774 had graduate degrees. www.chinanews.com.cn, April 4, 2003.
79 Renmin sifa (People’s Judiciary) 9 (2001): 8; WFZM, July 11, 2002; Renmin sifa 5 (1999): 19.
80 Calculated from data supplied by ZGFLNJ, various years.
81 Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Lawyersin China:Obstacles to Independence and the Defense of Rights(New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1998).
82 Minzhu yu fazhi 2 (1999): 13.
83 www.chinanews.com.cn, April 4, 2003.
84 Renmin sifa 5 (1999): 16.
85 Among the institutional flaws listed by He and Zhang were the appointment of nonjudges to head local courts; the interference by presidents of courts and chiefs of tribunals in cases they do not preside over; the strange practice of rendering judgments without trying the cases by trial committees; the lack of independence between superior and subordinate courts; the courts’ dependence on local budgets; the overlapping of courts’ jurisdictions with local governments’ jurisdictions (a source of local protectionism); and the court’s weak enforcement capacity. He and Zhang offered many reform proposals. www.chinanews.com.cn, December 4, 2004.
86 For example, proposed court reforms, summarized in the Supreme People’s Court’s Five-Year Program to Reform the System of People’s Courts issued in October 1999, did not deal with the fundamental institutional flaws in the legal system. Instead, these measures focused on trial procedures, reorganization of the internal structures of courts, personnel management of the courts, and improved supervision.
87 Li, “Court Reform in China.”
88 Renmin sifa 6 (1999) : 31.
89 For an excellent discussion of how these institutional flaws weaken judicial independence, see Cai Dingjian, “Fayuan zhidu gaige zhouyi” (On Reforming the Court System), Zhanlüe yu guanli 1 (1999): 97-101.
90 In one basic-level court in Jiangsu, of the fifteen members of the trial committee, two were high school graduates and two had only a middle-school education. Renmin sifa 2 (2001) : 21.
91 Renmin sifa 5 (1999): 20.
92 Jianfu Chcn, “Mission Impossible: Judicial Efforts to Enforce Civil Judgments and Rulings in China,” in Chen, Li, and Otto eds., Implementation of Law, 85-111.
93 Cai Dingjian singled out corruption as one of the most serious problems in China’s legal system. See Cai, “Development of the Chinese Legal System,” 135-166.
94 www.chinanews.com.cn, January 26, 2004.
95 www.chinanewsweek.com.cn, April 19, 2004.
96 www.chinanews.com.cn, August 21, 2004; October 10, 2004; December 19, 2004.
97 See Donald C. Glarke, “Power and Politics in the Chinese Court System: The Enforcement of Civil Judgments,” Columbia Journal of Asian Law10 (1996): 1-92.
98 Even the inflated official enforcement rate (percentage of judgments actually executed) fell from 75 percent in 1995 to 68 percent in 1997. Chen, “Mission Impossible,” 85-111.
99 Cai Dingjian, “Fayuan zhidu gaige zhouyi.”
100 This sentiment was reflected in an article written by the division chief of the research office of the Supreme People’s Court. He asked two important questions: why did some “seriously unqualified” individuals become judges and even