Embedded Courts Meet Campaigns: Case Registration and Administrative Litigation

• In Event: Technologies of Governance in China: Law, Campaigns, and Social Credit

Abstract

Existing studies usually consider courts in authoritarian regimes as a passive actor, quietly sitting in the toolbox of autocratic survival. In 1989, China introduced administrative litigation so that the citizens can address their grievances toward the government in the courts. On the other hand, administrative litigation can also create additional opportunities for the central leader to discipline and monitor local officials’ performance. However, contrary to these expectations, in practice the local courts are often reluctant to accept and hear administrative cases because they fear that doing so will grave repercussions, as the local governments hold significant command over personnel and fiscal resources of the courts. As a result, many Chinese citizens have no choice but to voice their resentment through petitions and other extrajudicial means, which in turn counterproductively undermines the Chinese regime’s popular support. These predicaments prompted the Chinese government under Xi Jinping to launch a series of judicial reforms under the theme of “rule by law” (yifa zhiguo). Many of these reforms, seeking to bolster the local courts’ position against the interferences from their respective local government agencies, were written into the amended Law on Administrative Litigation in 2014.

Drawing on a uniquely large dataset of more than 360,000 court transcripts, we employ a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design, as well as other identification strategies, to evaluate how the case registration system’s introduction in May 2015 – a reform that forbids the local courts from arbitrarily turning cases away – has reshaped China’s administrative litigation. First, we show that case registration indeed significantly increased the number of cases filed at both intermediate and primary people’s courts. These increases were particularly concentrated among administrative cases related to land grabs and demolition, namely cases with relatively difficult and complicated interest conflicts between the citizens and local governments. These changes, however, appear to be brief. In contrast, we find that the reform may have generated irreversible influences on how the courts handle their administrative cases. Many cases filed at the courts ended up being declined in the next stage or only received a simple ruling instead of being passed to the tribunals. Finally, we find evidence suggesting that some positive “spillover” effects, with the number of collective events falling. We also find that the messages on the “Local Leadership Message Board (LLMB)” became less negative following the reform.

Altogether, our article delineates a nuanced picture of China’s administrative litigation following the reform. As the expected effect of case registration was short-lived, the Chinese courts may not the regime’s “iron fist” that blindly follows the central leader’s commands. Qualitative evidence also confirms that many courts began to turn away cases again shortly after the reform, even without any pressure from the local governments. More broadly, we examine the Chinese court’s behaviors through the lens of campaign-style governance. While policy campaigns are often introduced in a multilevel administrative system to change the status quo through the mobilization of attention and resources, they are often unable to produce long-term and lasting impact.

Authors

• Ma Chao, tsinghua university

• Chao-yo Cheng, Birkbeck, University of London