Paul Tsai China Center Holds Judicial Reform Workshops

As part of a three-year cooperation on judicial reasoning and the role of precedent, the Paul Tsai China Center recently co-sponsored a workshop in Hangzhou with Professor Zheng Chunyan of Zhejiang University’s Guanghua Law School and the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) Administrative Tribunal, bringing together U.S. and Chinese judges and legal scholars to analyze the implementation of the SPC’s guiding case system, discuss comparative approaches to the use of case law in judicial reasoning and the litigation process, and offer in-depth analysis of selected administrative guiding cases involving citizen-state disputes. Judicial reform continues to be an important element of China’s broader legal reform process, and recent reforms led by the SPC have focused on increasing transparency and professionalism in the judicial system. In 2010, the SPC began systematically identifying “guiding” cases to promote more uniform and fair judicial decision-making.

Approximately 80 participants, including judges from the SPC, provincial-level high courts and intermediate courts, and a number of leading academic experts came together to share perspectives on judicial reasoning using case precedent in the Chinese and American systems. The Center’s Executive Director Robert Williams and Fellow Siodhbhra Parkin were joined by two U.S. federal judges, Judge John Walker of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and Judge Brian Cogan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge Walker and Judge Cogan drew on their extensive experience to offer insight on issues ranging from reliability, transparency, and fairness of judicial decisions to specific U.S. cases that illustrate the dynamics of precedent analysis and judicial opinion writing.   

Following an opening session addressing principles of reasoning using case precedents, comparison of case law systems, and judicial roles in different countries, participants turned their focus to a detailed analysis of two guiding cases specially selected for discussion on the basis of the importance and complexity of the legal issues involved. The first was a high-profile case involving the question of when a citizen may be said to be abusing the right to litigate through repeated requests for government information. The second was a dispute over an administrative land-use agreement that involved the legal interpretation of a third-party government agency and the appropriate weight to be given to that interpretation.

Participants engaged in debate on the role of the case system in Chinese jurisprudence and on the merits of the decisions reached in the cases selected for discussion. The U.S. judges discussed how they might have reasoned through these cases and how certain aspects of the decisions reached might become precedent for future judges to follow. Chinese participants provided their own assessment and engaged in discussion around the practical implications of the guiding case system.

In conjunction with the workshop, the organizers compiled and edited papers written by the participants into a book to be used by Chinese judges, practitioners, and scholars. For this volume, Judge Walker contributed an essay on the role of precedent in the U.S. case system, and Judge Cogan wrote a piece outlining “best practices” for judicial opinion writing.

In addition to the event in Hangzhou, the Center also worked with Chinese counterparts to organize several meetings and workshops with Chinese judges, legislators, academics, and practitioners. One event was a half-day roundtable led by Professor He Haibo of Tsinghua University Law School on judicial review of administrative action and how it affects agency behavior in practice. Nearly 30 participants engaged Judge Walker, Judge Cogan, and Center experts on issues surrounding judicial review, enforcement of court judgments against the executive, judicial remedies such as preliminary injunctions, and other aspects of the interplay between judicial and executive bodies.

Judges Walker and Cogan, along with Center staff, also took part in a roundtable with faculty and students at the China University of Political Science and Law on the role of the judiciary in a democracy. Discussion topics included the independence and non-political role of judges, the importance of precedent, consequences of being reversed on appeal, judicial nomination and appointment processes, judicial elections, and local pressure and protectionism, which resonate with recent judicial reform efforts in China.

The Center’s delegation was invited to meet with representatives from the Zhejiang Provincial People’s Congress Standing Committee for an in-depth discussion on the role of outside, non-governmental experts in the legislative process.