The Chinese Communist Party and People's Courts: Judicial Dependence in China

Proper understanding of the Chinese judicial system is often made frustratingly difficult due to the clash of two equally prevalent rival views of the relationship between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and China's courts. According to the first, the CCP is a frequent violator of the law and makes its claim to establish the rule of law a farcical act, while on the second view, very often expressed in defense against the first, the CCP is portrayed as the only reliable guardian that can buttress the otherwise vulnerable courts and subsequently protect the law and order that it seeks to establish. In this article, I intend to present an integrated and coherent explanation of the relationship between the CCP and China's courts and to explore the root cause that has led to the perceived contradictory impacts of the former upon the latter. To achieve this goal, I will start by tracking and examining the institutional history of the Party Political-Legal Committees (PPLCs), followed by an investigation of the mechanisms through which PPLCs have conducted supervision over courts. My primary finding is that the relationship between the CCP and the courts is embedded in the institutional design of the party state, under which the CCP and only the CCP has the authority to compel compliance by individual state institutions and by the state as a whole. As a result, courts are authorized to apply the law but lack the authority to compel compliance with the law by institutions of equal or higher rank in the power hierarchy defined by the CCP. The consequence of this arrangement exhibits two features, in fact two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, the CCP assumes a paternalistic role, obliged to provide courts with support to gain access to operational funds and other resources and to lend courts the necessary authority to compel compliance from institutions normally beyond the reach of the courts' own authority. On the other hand, the CCP is able to preserve the supreme authority of decision making in selected and prioritized areas, where it can determine judicial outcomes in an arbitrary fashion to advance its political agenda and goals through both or either of the macro and micro approaches.