Justizreformen in China

Courts in authoritarian states have only recently become the focus of studies in comparative legal studies or political science. This book analyses judicial reforms in the People’s Republic of China over the past 20 years. In contrast to other studies that have found courts to be weak and dependent institutions of the party state the transformation of courts and their immediate institutional contexts are described as a process of judicialization. The analysis distinguishes between judicialization processes on the central and local levels. On the national level, the study investigates the Supreme People’s Court, which has become a quasi-legislative body. A further focus of this book is the content of the judicial examination that reflects the party state’s requirements of how judges interpret and apply the law in practice.