book: Contemporary Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in China

Contemporary Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in China
Edited by Margaret Y. K. Woo
Northeastern University, Boston
Mary E. Gallagher
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Not yet published - available from March 2011

This volume analyzes whether China's thirty years of legal reform have taken root in Chinese society by examining how ordinary citizens are using the legal system in contemporary China. It is an interdisciplinary look at law in action and at legal institutions from the bottom up, that is, beginning with those at the ground level that are using and working in the legal system. It explores the emergent Chinese conception of justice – one that seeks to balance Chinese tradition, socialist legacies, and the needs of the global market. Given the political dimension of dispute resolution in creating, settling, and changing social norms, this volume contributes to a greater understanding of political and social change in China today and of the process of legal reform generally.

Contents
Part I. Legal Development and Institutional Tensions:
1. From mediatory to adjudicatory justice: the limits of civil justice reform in China
Fu Hualing and Richard Cullen;
2. Judicial disciplinary systems for incorrectly decided cases: the imperial Chinese heritage lives on Carl Minzner;
3. Proceduralism and rivalry in China's two legal states Douglas B. Grob;
4. Economic development and the development of the legal profession in China Randall Peerenboom;

Part II. Pu Fa and the Dissemination of Law in the Chinese Context:
5. The impact of nationalist and Maoist legacies on popular trust in legal institutions Pierre F. Landry;
6. Popular attitudes toward official justice in Beijing and rural China Ethan Michelson and Benjamin Read;
7. Users and non-users: legal experience and its effect on legal consciousness Mary Gallagher and Yuhua Wang;
8. With or without law: the changing meaning of ordinary legal work in China, 1979-2003 Sida Liu;

Part III. Law from the Bottom Up:
9. A populist threat to China's courts? Benjamin L. Liebman;
10. Dispute resolution and China's grass-roots legal services Fu Yulin;
11. Constitutionalism with Chinese characteristics? Thomas E. Kellogg.

Contributors
Fu Hualing, Richard Cullen, Carl Minzner, Douglas B. Grob, Randall Peerenboom, Pierre F. Landry, Ethan Michelson, Benjamin Read, Mary Gallagher, Yuhua Wang, Sida Liu, Benjamin L. Liebman, Fu Yulin, Thomas E. Kellogg

Constitutionalism with Chinese Characters
[from another place]
For decades, the Chinese Constitution has been thought to lie outside judicial purview, as its basic rights provisions have been more or less ignored. For that reason, many outside observers have assumed that constitutional development in China is at a standstill. Nonetheless, in recent years, a number of Chinese lawyers, academics, and activists—pushing for a more active judicial role—have been challenging standard assumptions about the Chinese Constitution. Taking antidiscrimination litigation as a key example, this article describes the impetus inside China for constitutional development and delineates the state's response. While state actors often ignore constitutional claims publicly, they may still respond to the underlying substantive issues raised by would-be reformers. The author argues that, although such efforts have had limited impact on the formal constitutional structure, nevertheless, they have had a positive effect on the public's rights consciousness.