Symbiotic Neighbour or Extra-Court Judge? The Supervision over Courts by Chinese Local People's Congresses

Abstract

This article explores the Chinese local people's congresses' supervision over courts in an attempt to understand the pattern of emerging state organs' development in the reform era. During their development, people's congresses and courts could not expect to have institutionally based independent authority in a party-state. They instead had to make full use of opportunities to expand clarified jurisdictions and to intensify organizational capacities. As a result, the developmental pattern of newly emerging forces became more complicated than expected: a series of intertwined relationships of state organs with the Party at the apex, based on their legal and political statuses rather than independent and autonomous development, and their desperate efforts to exploit each and every opportunity. And this pattern will continue until there is a radical reform of the Chinese political system.