The Company They Keep: When and Why Chinese Judges Engage in Collegiality

• In Event: Poster Session: State Politics and Policy & Law and Courts
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Law and Courts

Abstract

Scholars of law, economics, and political science argue that collegiality matters. Considerable panel effects exist across different jurisdictions, and judges compose panels strategically. However, either legalistic or empirical study of collegiality is developed in a fully-fledged rule of law system. Mechanisms identified so far almost exclusively focus on the American experience. What about collective judicial decisions in other jurisdictions? Does collegiality matter in a vulnerable environment?

This study extends the discussion to the case of China, where millions of cases are decided by collegial panels every year. Chinese courts are deeply embedded in the political-social environment despite the continuous legal reforms of the last four decades. At the same time, decisions of panel composition are diffused. Chinese presiding judges enjoy rare discretionary power in deciding whom to cooperate with for an individual case. Specifically, we are concerned with collegial panels and their effects. When and why do Chinese judges engage in collegiality? Why do they choose to cooperate with some judges in a particular case, not others?

Based on 23,564 cases ranging from 2015 to 2017 decided by a local court in Beijing, China, and in-depth interviews with court former leaders and judges, we build a network of collegial behavior of Chinese judges and examine the cooperation strategy of Chinese judges and their impacts over case outcomes. Specifically, we reveal the intriguing panel effects in Chinese courts: when judges compose panels with their hard-to-get colleagues, they tend to make tough decisions, such as ruling against government agencies in administrative litigation cases, favoring one-shotters or rendering extreme decisions in civil cases, and relatively harsh punishments in criminal ones.

The underlying mechanism behind such panel effects is Chinese judges’ strategic consideration when facing complex cases. For ordinary cases, the presiding judges tend to improvise judicial panels with their junior colleagues. These cases constitute their comfort zones where they can easily steer the case deposition while “tutoring” young judges. However, when handling complex cases, the presiding judges tend to spare extra efforts to huddle together with senior and capable colleagues, such as the court leaders, the star judges, or more educated ones. In general, we argue for an external source of collegiality: Chinese judges huddle together strategically to reach tough decisions.

Our findings challenge the long-standing dismissal of Chinese collegial panels as merely symbolic. It lends more evidence to the rising strategic account of judicial decisions in China and has the potential to expand our understanding of collective judicial decision-making to other vulnerable situations. The exploration of the China case also complements the overall account of collegiality and offers further evidence substantiating an external source of collegiality: strategic coalition-building under a vulnerable environment to reach tough decisions.

Authors

• Xiaohong Yu

• Zhaoyang Sun