Research On Competition Among Local Courts In Contemporary China

Since China adopted the reform and opening-up policy in late1978, the miracles ineconomic development could be attributed to competitions among the local authoritiesaimed at economic growth. Local courts are also getting involved, and there are threekinds of competition patterns among local courts: pattern of political achievementcompetition, pattern of common service competition and pattern of knowledge-basedcompetition. In the process of judicial reform, the supreme people’s court played animportant role of macro control：to guide, inspire, regulate and supervise competitionsamong local courts. Competitions among local courts in contemporary China are theinterior impetus of judicial institutional innovation and its direction is constructing ajust, efficient and authoritative judicial system.The paper is divided into six chapters, and the basic content of these chapters canbe outlined as follows:Chapter one, which is the part of introduction, mainly analyses the significance ofthe research, and reviews the latest advances in the research on local governmentcompetitions and courts competitions at home and abroad. Meanwhile, this chaptersummarizes the main framework of the paper, such as writing perspective and the maincontent.The second chapter puts forward the competitions among local courts incontemporary China. First discussed the concept and the meaning of “competition”,then analyses the backgrounds of competitions of China’s local courts which are mainlyfocused on the competitive platform of taking the economic construction as the center,and indicates that competition of local courts essentially represents the expansion ofcompetitions of local governments on judicial field, at the same time, multiple judicialdemands which are caused by the separation of state and society also promote this kindof competition. Basically, competitions among local courts in contemporary China haveaccorded with some basic characteristics of competitions, such as, scarcity and mobilityof competition resources, demands and rivalry to resources and multiplicity of demand subjects. This chapter tentatively puts forward the concept of “competitions among localcourts in contemporary China”.The third chapter,“Comparative study on Court Competition”, mainly discussesthe competitions of courts in the different countries: Britain, France, and the UnitedStates of America. In Britain, they were chiefly manifested in the competitions amongroyal courts, religious courts and the feudal barons courts in the Middle Ages. InAmerican, there are many kinds of court competitions, not only among state courts, butalso between federal courts and state courts. In addition, there also have competitionsfrom between public courts (including federal courts and state courts) and private courts.In France, courts competitions are mainly displayed in the two court systems:administrative courts and ordinary civil courts. It is because of the competitions amongcourts, innovations of judicial system become possible, and better judicial products andservices could be provided to society.The fourth chapter,“analysis on competition patterns among local courts incontemporary China”, indicates that there are three kinds of competition patterns amonglocal courts: the first is pattern of political achievement competition which is caused bylocalization of judicial power, administration of courts management and servicisation ofjudicial activities. The second is pattern of common service competition throughproviding judicial products, which is caused by public rationality of local courts andprofessional consciousness of judges owing to state attributes of judicial power. Thethird is pattern of knowledge-based competition due to the collisions and stimulationsbetween judicial rationality and judicial experience.The fifth chapter is “on regulation of competitions among local courts incontemporary China”. In contemporary China, malignant competitions among localcourts are very serious. They are shown in three aspects: one is preference substitutewhich prefers more courts interests to public interests; the second is shown as payingmore attention on social stability rather than fairness and justice; the third one ismanifested in local separatism which lays more stress on local protection over theunification of legal system. The Supreme People’s Court has published many macroscopic readjustments and controls on competitions among local courts. Theyinclude: incentives of judicial reforms aiming at encouraging the tests of local courts,regulation of local trials judicial performance, judicial policy guidance of local courts’competitions, and judicial supervision to overcome excessive local protection and so on.To the regulation of China’s local courts competitions, its target is the establishment of afair, efficient, authoritative judicial system, its premise is the respect for the essentialattributes of judicial power, and the key is to achieve the nationalization of local courts.The last chapter mainly discusses the jurisprudential significance and target modelof local courts’ competitions. These competitions have been the internal power source ofjudicial reforms for local courts, and have promoted the people’s court judicial reformprocess. In terms of the law and economics, the meaning of competitions of local courtslies in the enhancement of legal market supply mechanism, from the point of politics oflaw, its meaning is judicial control to local protection; from the perspective of sociologyof law, its meaning rests in the generation of judicial authority, and its law philosophymeaning is evolution rationality of system innovation. The target pattern of local courts’competitions in contemporary China is: the orderly competition among local courtsunder the constraint of rule of law.