Balancing Scales: How Stability Policies Shape Judicial Independence and Administrative Litigation in China
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64229/bskxmn73Keywords:
Judicial Independence, Administrative Litigation, Stability Maintenance Policy, Proportionality Principle, Judicial ReviewAbstract
Judicial review in China has evolved within a governance framework that privileges social stability over judicial autonomy. This study examines how stability-maintenance policies affect the impartiality, transparency, and independence of administrative litigation. Drawing on doctrinal analysis, legislative review, and selected case studies, the paper traces reforms to the Administrative Litigation Law and shifts in the Supreme People’s Court’s accountability mechanisms, highlighting the formal introduction and limited application of standards such as “obvious impropriety” and the proportionality principle. Empirical and doctrinal evidence indicates that hierarchical supervision, performance metrics, and stability-oriented dispute-resolution practices constrain judicial discretion in practice. Court strategies increasingly favor mediation and dispute absorption to pre-empt mass incidents, narrowing substantive review and marginalizing challenges to abstract administrative acts. As a result, judicial review functions more often to legitimize administrative decisions than to robustly protect individual rights. The study concludes that while maintaining social order is not inherently incompatible with the rule of law, the institutionalization of stability priorities systematically compresses the substantive space for independent adjudication. The paper offers targeted policy recommendations for aligning proportionality-based reasoning with judicial autonomy.
References
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[2]See generally: Constitution. 1982 (PRC) s 128, ‘The Supreme People’s Court is responsible to the National People’s Congress and its Standing Committee. Local people’s courts at different levels are responsible to the organs of state power which created them’.
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[5]At the 2012 Annual Conference of China Society of Administrative Law, a proposal to establish an independent administrative court system outside the existing court system was discussed, similar to the then well-functioning maritime courts and the abolished railway courts. This proposal subsequently gained support from many scholars, judges and officials. However, despite the widespread attention and discussion, the proposal was not ultimately implemented.
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[30]Established in 2018, it supplements the previous dual-track surveillance system: the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the People’s Procuratorate.
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[32]Ibid.
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[36]Chan (n 28).
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[38]People’s Courts Newspaper (People's Republic of China, 26 May 2020).
[39]Yifan Xian, ‘Pragmatic Choice: Decision Making in Grassroots Courts of Guangdong Province’ (PhD Thesis, the university of HongKong, 2023).
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