Do Judges in China Follow Wrongly Decided Precedents? - An Empirical Study

Article


Qu, Charles Zhen, Li, Bin and Lin, Lauren Yu-Hsin. 2024. "Do Judges in China Follow Wrongly Decided Precedents? - An Empirical Study." The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law. 12. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjcl/cxae006
Article Title

Do Judges in China Follow Wrongly Decided Precedents? - An Empirical Study

ERA Journal ID201563
Article CategoryArticle
AuthorsQu, Charles Zhen, Li, Bin and Lin, Lauren Yu-Hsin
Journal TitleThe Chinese Journal of Comparative Law
Journal Citation12
Number of Pages27
Year2024
PublisherOxford University Press
Place of PublicationUnited Kingdom
ISSN2050-4802
2050-4810
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1093/cjcl/cxae006
Web Address (URL)https://academic.oup.com/cjcl/article/doi/10.1093/cjcl/cxae006/7667393
AbstractDo Chinese judges follow prior decisions fraught with judicial errors? If they do, why do they do so? The development of policies on the reform of China’s judicial system requires an answer to these questions. Unfortunately, empirical findings that may lead to an answer, especially those based on data collected from case reports, are lacking. To fill this gap, we undertook an analysis of 310 case reports on a complex issue to discover (i) the influence of two wrongly decided precedents announced by the Supreme People’s Court and (ii) the extent to which the rank of the deciding court affects the force of this influence. Our findings suggest that judges may rely on an officially designated precedent even if the latter is wrongly decided and the strength of the influence is negatively correlated with the seniority of the deciding court. Our findings are useful for isolating factors affecting judicial decision making in China, which are necessary for making decisions on the reform of judicial system in that country.
KeywordsChina
Contains Sensitive ContentDoes not contain sensitive content
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020480302. Comparative law
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Byline AffiliationsCharles Darwin University
School of Law and Justice
University of New England
Griffith University
City University of Hong Kong, China
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