Adjudication supervision and judicial independence in the P.R.C.

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/d20002349

This article examines how the judicial committee and the concept of “supervision” operate to enable and constraint judicial independence in the People’s Republic of China. By allowing the liberal reopening of final judgments, adjudication supervision can ensure justice by allowing the correction of errors but it can also place enormous institutional constraints on individual judicial work. Adjudication supervision reflects the belief that individual judicial work must be subjected to supervision by the masses, legal institutions such as the procuracy, and the state. Ultimately, judicial independence in China means the independence of the court as a whole and not the work of individual judges.