The Chinese Debate about the Adjudication Committee: Implications for What 'Judicial Independence' Means in the Context of China

This article examines debates about adjudication committees as they have been unfolding among Chinese academics. It argues that embedded in this debate are important implications about how Chinese tend to view the role that adjudication plays in Chinese society in general and the meaning and problems of ‘judicial independence’ in particular. It suggests that Chinese tend to see judicial independence as a device for delivering substantive justice rather than procedural justice and also that they see it as being normatively dependent to a great degree on local context and not deriving from any particular institutional architecture.