China hones in on bad judges

Around 70 percent of China's judges do not have legal degrees

HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- China's top judge has vowed a sweeping revamp of the country's courts in a bid to educate judges and wrestle them away from decades of ties to the ruling Communist Party.

In a harsh stocktake of the country's notoriously ill-qualified judges, China's chief justice, Xiao Yang, has slammed "non-professional" and "incompetent" judges for making the system unfair.

Judges in China have traditionally been appointed for political reasons, resulting in courts rarely making decisions separately from the Communist Party influence.

Meanwhile, most of China's 200,000 judges do not have a legal degree, are poorly paid, with many of those working outside the big cities seen as inept and corrupt.

"Courts have often been taken as branches of the government and judges viewed as civil servants who have to follow orders from superiors," Xiao, who is also head of the Supreme People's Court, told Chinese state media.

In a bid to move away from the top-down Soviet-era-style of law and a realm of uneducated lawyers, China's Supreme Court unveiled a raft of reforms at a weekend law conference.

Acknowledging a "huge system engineering project," Xiao said a new and smaller quota of judges would be put in place in the wake of a 10 percent cut in court staff.

Could lose jobs

Judges are following orders from superiors, says Xiao Yang

Beginning this year, new judges have to pass two exams and undertake legal training before they can be appointed. Incumbent judges would have to get a law degree or face losing their jobs.

In another big turnaround, veteran clerks would no longer be promoted to the bench after a number of years. Assistants would handle "minor matters" to free up judges time.

To curb interference from powerful figures, judges would not be fired or disciplined without due process, and would be supervised.

"We hope that the reform of the recruitment system for judges and the introduction of assistants will help establish a stricter system for entering the profession and that a better training system will improve the proficiency of judges," Xiao said.

Track record

China has vowed many times to revamp its legal system. While much of it was dismantled during Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution of 1966-76, the judiciary was restored in the late 1970s.

But China's track record in pushing through legal reforms over the past 20 years has been somewhat of a mixed bag, says Michael Davies, a legal expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

While China has set up law schools and agencies and drafted laws as it moves from top-down socialism to capitalism based on individual choice and regulations, its legal system is still weak.

"The enactment of all kinds of laws is an advancement, but the difficulty is how to make sure it all works," says Davies.

"They (Beijing) have acknowledged that more is needed in the reform exercise."

At a time when curbs on expression still exist, Beijing has vowed to boost the rule of law, especially now that it is a member of the World Trade Organization, where all eyes are on the workings of its economy and its laws.

Investors are gauging how safe it is to do business in the country, and checking whether judges are abiding and enforcing laws, Hong Kong legal experts have said.

Window dressing

And while some lawyers are skeptical of the overhaul, saying it may be nothing more than window dressing designed to keep investment high and satisfy WTO rules, others are more optimistic.

"I've seen what has been done in intellectual property and commercial cases, and now they (Beijing) are going all the way across the board, to deal with cases of overhanging air-conditioners and divorces," says Ed Lehman, director of the international section of law firm Lehman, Lee & Xu.

The Beijing-based company has seen a 20 percent rise in patent filing since these laws were rewritten July last year.

Firms feel they can now achieve remedies through the courts, Lehman says, adding there is a big misconception among foreign lawyers about how bad things are in China.

Foreign firms are now finding that courts at the higher levels are better able to meet their needs, although the Chinese legal system is still lagging behind those of its Western counterparts.

And despite the gap between law in the cities and in the rural areas of China, more and more Chinese themselves are turning to the law to settle their disputes as avenues for redress open up, often becoming addicts of local television law shows.

While legal experts have heralded China's latest moves, they say that it is the start of a long and enormous overhaul of a traditionally unsophisticated system, with the biggest challenge still "getting honest bright young people part of this process."