This book systematically and concisely expounds the construction process of China's legal system since China's reform and opening-up. Chapter 1 defines the legal system in China and describes the development of China's legal system from 1949 to 1978. Chapter 2 introduces China's legislative system, including its historical development, division of legislative functions and power, and legislative procedures. Chapter 3 compares the differences between the law systems of other countries and China's law system and how other law systems in the world influences the law system in China. Chapter 4 studies China's constitutional law system, including its historical development, forms of law and enforcement of the constitution. Chapter 5 introduces China's administrative legal system, including main principles, administrative legislation and administrative compensation. Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9 describe China's civil and commercial legal system, China's economic legal system, China's social legal system and China's criminal legal system respectively. Chapter 10 introduces China's legal system in litigation and non-litigation procedure in terms of criminal, civil, administrative and non-litigation procedures. Chapter 11 analyses the legal system of the special administrative regions in China and its relationship with China's legal system. The last chapter, Chapter 12 studies the relationship between the international law and China's domestic law system.

On July 1, 2007, Hong Kong celebrated its tenth anniversary as a special administrative region of China. It also marked the first decade of its unique constitutional order in which Hong Kong courts continue to apply and develop the common law but the power of final interpretation of the constitution lies with the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. This book is a collection of chapters by leading constitutional law experts in Hong Kong who examine the interpretive issues and conflicts which have arisen since 1997. Intervention by China in constitutional interpretation has been restrained but each intervention has had significant political and jurisprudential impact. The authors give varied assessments of the struggle for interpretive coherence in the coming decade.

This book provides a systematic and detailed introduction to the formation process and current development of China's socialist legal system. The classification of the constitution and constitution-related laws, criminal law, civil and commercial law, administrative law, economic law, litigation and non-litigation procedural law, social law, and the specifics of each sector of law are explained, which is a good guide for understanding the framework of China's legal system and the study of each sector of jurisprudence.

In March 2009, the Faculty of Law at Charles University in Prague, together with the University of Zürich, organized a seminar on Chinese legal culture. As a follow up to this event the participants and other scholars from Europe, Asia, and North America contributed essays looking at Chinese law through a variety of lenses, from its historical roots to its modern reforms. Special attention is also paid here to the question of Westernization, the role of globalization in Chinese legal system, and the act of "translating" between western and Asian legal (and cultural) systems. A wide-ranging collection that contains various perspectives from leading experts in the field, Interpretation of Law in China is a remarkable feat of scholarship and essential reading for anyone interested in comparative, international, or Asian law.

This book provides a systematic elaboration of Chinese Private International Law, reveals the general techniques concerning conflict of laws in China, explains the detailed Chinese conflict rules for different areas of law, and demonstrates how international civil litigation is pursued in China. Clearly structured and written by a native Chinese scholar specializing in the field, the book’s easy-to-read style makes it accessible to a broad readership, while its content makes it a useful reference guide, especially for jurists and researchers.

This collection of selected works by Professor Albert H.Y. Chen shows the contours of the author’s scholarship as it developed over 35 years of his academic career, from 1984 to the present. The essays are divided into three sections which cover the three major domains of Professor Chen’s research. Part I covers the legal developments and controversies of “One Country, Two Systems” since the Hong Kong interpretation on “the right of abode” in 1999 to the anti-extradition movement of 2019. Part II shifts to focus on tradition and modernity in Chinese Law, including China’s Confucian and Legalist traditions and how the socialist legal system in China evolved and modernized in the era of “reform and opening”. Part III examines the transplantation of Western thinking and constitutionalism to East Asia in modern times and discusses the achievements and failures of these efforts. In conjunction with an introductory chapter that sets out the basic orientation and paradigm of these legal and constitutional studies and an epilogue that reflects on the main themes, this collection exemplifies the author’s important contributions to the field and provides insight into how the legal orders in Hong Kong and mainland China have changed over the course of Professor Chen’s academic career.

Providing practitioners with a practical guide to judicial systems in the People's Republic of China, this text examines the role of the judiciary in the Chinese legal system. It does this mainly through opinions published in the official publication of the Supreme People's Court (SPC) - The Gazette. The role of the SPC in interpreting and implementing the legislation of the People's Republic of China is examined, highlighting the importance of The Gazette. A discussion of the rule of law and the principles of an independent administration is also included. This guide should be of use to practitioners who need to understand legislative and judicial processes in the People's Republic of China.

China has enjoyed considerable economic growth in recent years in spite of an immature, albeit rapidly developing, legal system, a system whose nature, evolution and path of development have been poorly understood by scholars. Drawing on his legal and business experience in China as well as his academic background in the field, Peerenboom provides a detailed analysis of China's legal reforms. He argues that China is in transition from rule by law to a version of rule of law, though most likely not a liberal democratic version as found in economically advanced countries in the West. Maintaining that law plays a key role in China's economic growth, Peerenboom assesses reform proposals and makes his own recommendations. In addition to students and scholars of Chinese law, political science, sociology and economics, this will interest business professionals, policy advisors, and governmental and non-governmental agencies as well as comparative legal scholars and philosophers.

China's rapid socioeconomic transformation of the past twenty years has led to dramatic changes in its judicial system and legal practices. As China becomes more powerful on the world stage, the global community has dedicated more resources and attention to understanding the country's evolving democratization, and policymakers have identified the development of civil liberties and long-term legal reforms as crucial for the nation's acceptance as a global partner. Modern Chinese Legal Reform is designed as a legal and political research tool to help English-speaking scholars interpret the many recent changes to China's legal system. Investigating subjects such as constitutional history, the intersection of politics and law, democratization, civil legal practices, and judicial mechanisms, the essays in this volume situate current constitutional debates in the context of both the country's ideology and traditions and the wider global community. Editors Xiaobing Li and Qiang Fang bring together scholars from multiple disciplines to provide a comprehensive and balanced look at a difficult subject. Featuring newly available official sources and interviews with Chinese administrators, judges, law-enforcement officers, and legal experts, this essential resource enables readers to view key events through the eyes of individuals who are intimately acquainted with the challenges and successes of the past twenty years.

China’s traditional system of dispute resolution and maintenance of order in society has been treated by Western scholars as legal history, but because the Chinese system is radically different from European systems in its conceptual structure and therefore does not fit into the familiar categories and models of Western law and jurisprudence, such treatment has been inadequate and often misleading. In Order and Discipline in China, Thomas B. Stephens provides a new approach, methodology, and theoretical framework for the interpretation of traditional Chinese “law.” Stephens argues convincingly that Chinese society has always operated according to the disciplinary system of order, ni which hierarchy is established by actual power, and he provides a thorough methodology and framework for understanding disciplinary theory. He discusses the system, showing it not the random (or even unjust) tyranny it may sometimes appear to the Western, legally oriented mind but an effective system that successfully guided China for centuries. The study is not merely historical, but provides insights into Chinese ways of thinking about social relationships, dispute resolution, and the enforcement of civil obligations that are vital to intercultural understanding today. His study is based on the activities of the Mixed Court of the International Settlement at Shanghai, which dealth with legal problems concerning Chinese people within the representative, or “assessor.” The Mixed Court conventionally has been looked upon as a disciplinary tribunal enforcing a system of dispute resolution and the maintenance of social order upon the principles of disciplinary theory. The Mixed Court is a convenient point from which to measure the legal and disciplinary systems against each other and to study them in conflict. Although Western powers tried to interpret the court in legal terms, it responds much more convincingly to analysis according to the disciplinary system: it provided its right to rule by the abililty to enforce its decisions, and it decided cases not, as claimed, by Chinese laws (which actually did not exist) but according to those principles established by the Western consuls. Order and Disipline in China will be of interest not only to legal scholars and students of Chinese history and society, but also to students of social order and international relations throughout the world. It also offers practical assistance to Westerners dealing with Chinese business relations, social and political affairs, or dispute settlement.