Hacker News Reader

Comment by jbrun | Hacker News Reader

Clarification: I meant rule of law broadly speaking as a human invention (like science and medicine), not specific to China. Sorry for the confusion.

View on HN

One of my high school friends has become a judge in my hometown (fulfilling his dream), and they are actually a team specialising in dealing with cases against local authorities[0]. I exchange conversation with him about all kinds of societal issues. I don't know how it can represent everywhere in China but I understand that the legal system has improved massively comparing with decades ago. In major cities most civil cases are ruled by law and working quite well. You can have any opinion you like but I find people completely dismissing a working legal system in China is a bit silly.

[0]https://zj.zjol.com.cn/red_boat.html?id=100995604

There is no separation of powers in China and therefore there is no rule of law. In theory the Party's congress could enforce a defacto independent judiciary, but the evidence is of course that they don't, they are the biggest theatrical production not called that.

If that wasn't enough you could trivially look up how many lawyers end up imprisoned or worse.

It's not even a bit silly to argue China has anything near a working legal system, it absolutely doesn't.

I'm talking about lower courts such as county/city courts that deal with all local level proceedings. They function just as English magistrates/county courts. I'm not sure how the separation of power has anything to do with these local judiciary. If you talk about corruption that's a different issue.

For me if these courts are exercising their judicial power legally and properly then we at least have a working civil legal system (not 'none'). There are unfair cases with international concerns but it's not unique to China. I don't think a majority of the local courts in China are malfunctioning or abusing power. If you have evidence to back your claim up I'm happy to read that.

https://www.worldjusticeproject.org/rule-of-law-index/countr...

Sounds like you don't read to many news papers by the way. You might want to check out what's going in in Hong Kong under Chinese pressure. Good demonstration of what the Chinese state thinks of independent judiciaries.

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear in my comments. Yes of course I am aware of the status quo and very much following all major events. What I was commenting was the general everyday activity involving law and legal system. I don't know how you get confused but I wasn't referring to events like the Hong Kong situation, which is clearly not a local level case.

I merely want to contribute to a meaningful discussion by personal experience so I wouldn't expand to those topics (in my opinion quite sensationalised by social media). I live in Europe now and absolutely understand what the general public are interested in.

If you have to be wary of not stepping into territory where the state will wield its heavy hand, then I just don't see how you can maintain it is functioning at a 'local' level. What's local? It's not like the Chinese state clearly delineates the boundary. And looking at the imprisoned lawyers, local authorities are not above blocking inconvenient litigation either.

I did not link to social media, nor do I use it, so please refrain from assuming it has any influence on the point I'm making. I'm sure perfectly fine litigation has happened, it would just be foolish to count on it. Maybe you're right that with an increasingly limited issue you luck increases.

I don't understand what you mean by 'wary of not stepping into territory where the state will wield its heavy hand'. I was simply giving examples of the part of legal system that I know of. Pardon my English, what I call 'local' is meant to be 'civil cases' like business and personal cases. And yes of course the legal system delineates those cases from national level cases. My original argument was that civil cases largely work well (unless you prove me wrong by statistics).

I didn't make any assumption of your information sources nor did I assert any influence of social media. It was only a general statement, not about anybody in particular. It was you who 'assumed' I didn't read any news etc. I fully respect all users' opinions here and would genuinely be interested to read any reference/articles to prove your points. I'll be surprised that the imprisoned lawyer cases were happening all the time in the lower courts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com