Corruption in China's Courts

Abstract

This chapter seeks to answer three main questions: What types of corrupt behavior exist in China’s courts? Do the different types of corruption occur with equal salience in different court-divisions, different types of cases, courts at different levels and for different groups of judges? How can the findings be interpreted and explained? In answering these questions, I adopt an inductive analytical framework developed from a comprehensive study of about 350 court corruption cases, spanning the years 1991 to 2008. These cases are supplemented by numerous media reports, diaries and essays written by court-users about their court experience during the same period of time. Unlike the policy- or solution-oriented approaches adopted in most current studies, I attempt in this chapter to investigate, describe and analyze the basic factual features of corruption in China’s courts, with a view to demonstrating the scope, variances and patterns of corrupt activities in China’s courts.

Keywords: corruption, judicial corruption, bribery, courts, judges, lawyers, China