Justice and the Organization of Local Government
According to reports by CNN, a protest on Monday in a rural town in Guizhou Province, China was set off by the recent murder of a teenage girl and by the authorities' subsequent refusal to act against the suspects. Local townspeople believe the girl was raped and murdered by persons with close connections to the local government. Police have labeled the death a suicide, and when her uncle complained to the authorities about this conclusion, he was beaten and sent to the hospital. The incident drew enough popular outrage that the public set fires in front of the local public security bureau. Armed riot police now patrol the streets.
Reports indicate that corruption and intimidation and a correspondingly violent public reaction of this type are not unusual in rural China. The exact details of this incident are not and probably cannot be known under current conditions, but assuming the facts underlying the protest to be true, they highlight how the concentration of government power at the level of the local government can lead to abuses of power and thus to an inharmonious society. "Village emperors" who may be local industry leaders or government officials, dominate rural society in their respective localities through their formal and informal power over the levers of government and local industry, institutions which are often intimately (legally and not legally) intertwined. Local governments own and support businesses, and to secure such support, businesses take on local government officials as investors and partners. Should anything get in the way of either's interests, the village emperors have the levers of government and economic power at their disposal to remove -- fairly or unfairly, politely or impolitely -- the threat.
Because of the unitary organization of the Chinese government, the local population has little ability to check the behavior of these well-connected individuals. When incidents of abuse of power occur, complaints to the police at best fall on deaf ears and at worse on the ears of the agents of the tormentors themselves, leading to the kinds of beating and public intimidation seemingly evident in the Guizhou incident of late. China presently implements a system of hierarchical oversight as local authorities are overseen by provincial authorities who are overseen by central authorities. Chinese history presents many examples of local populaces appealing to higher authorities to correct injustices and malfeasances by local authorities. Unfortunately, recent history suggests that this system of oversight may not be enough.
Certainly, the standard "democracy and human rights" prescriptions would be helpful here. A free press able to cover incidents of local government misbehavior and elections where the public could vote malfeasant local officials out of office would go a long way towards preventing the abuses that lead to these kinds of social disturbances. Fortunately, China is already moving in the direction of a press that plays an greater oversight role in society, at least vis-a-vis local government. Although it has not yet expanded local democratic processes, it would seem that such a development is only a matter of time.
However, in the meantime and generally, China should consider whether additional steps may be necessary and helpful. In particular, whether a small adjustment to the organization of its courts and prosecutorial offices would be helpful in checking abusive potential of rural local governments. Quite simply, China should consider separating the management, budgets and personnel authority for the courts and the prosecutors from local government and placing those organs into a separate bureaucratic unit managed vertically, similar to how the military is organizationally distinct from the rest of the Chinese government. Providing for institutional checks and balances is precisely why police in the U.S. generally are under the management and budgetary authority of a city while district attorneys and courts are generally under the management and budgetary authority of a county or state. Such a reform would limit local influence on courts and prosecutors and thus permit those authorities to take action when the kinds of abuses in the Guizhou case occur at the hands of local police and local government authorities. Although not a guarantee of good behavior in every situation, at least the leadership of courts and prosecutorial authorities would not be directly indebted or accountable to the persons most frequently held by the public to be responsible for the abuses in question.
China could implement such a reform relatively simply and with little disruption to CCP governance or policy. Separating the courts and the prosecutors management, budgets and personnel from local government would simply mean that tax revenues from the locality directed to those agencies would have to be funneled upwards and then back down through centralized budgeting. Although personnel would be affected in that public security personnel could no longer be so easily dispatched to the courts or the prosecutors, this would be an improvement in the sense that the position of the procurate and the courts would be raised, making it easier for them to oversee the public security authorities. Finally, reorganizing the management of the courts and procurate would not in any way effect the political or policy directions of those agencies; it would simply mean that a different set of CCP officials would manage them from above rather than from the local level.
From 1949 to 1978, the CCP moved towards an increasingly unitary state structure. It unified the management and control of government agencies, industry, land, social welfare, and all aspects of life. Since 1979, however, China has recognized the value of separating institutions and has permitted farmers to tend separate plots and industries to separate from government control. China's central authorities may now wish to consider whether a reorganization of its courts and prosecutorial systems may be advantageous to the provision of justice to a seemingly impatient public, justice being a necessary ingredient of a harmonious society.
Reports indicate that corruption and intimidation and a correspondingly violent public reaction of this type are not unusual in rural China. The exact details of this incident are not and probably cannot be known under current conditions, but assuming the facts underlying the protest to be true, they highlight how the concentration of government power at the level of the local government can lead to abuses of power and thus to an inharmonious society. "Village emperors" who may be local industry leaders or government officials, dominate rural society in their respective localities through their formal and informal power over the levers of government and local industry, institutions which are often intimately (legally and not legally) intertwined. Local governments own and support businesses, and to secure such support, businesses take on local government officials as investors and partners. Should anything get in the way of either's interests, the village emperors have the levers of government and economic power at their disposal to remove -- fairly or unfairly, politely or impolitely -- the threat.
Because of the unitary organization of the Chinese government, the local population has little ability to check the behavior of these well-connected individuals. When incidents of abuse of power occur, complaints to the police at best fall on deaf ears and at worse on the ears of the agents of the tormentors themselves, leading to the kinds of beating and public intimidation seemingly evident in the Guizhou incident of late. China presently implements a system of hierarchical oversight as local authorities are overseen by provincial authorities who are overseen by central authorities. Chinese history presents many examples of local populaces appealing to higher authorities to correct injustices and malfeasances by local authorities. Unfortunately, recent history suggests that this system of oversight may not be enough.
Certainly, the standard "democracy and human rights" prescriptions would be helpful here. A free press able to cover incidents of local government misbehavior and elections where the public could vote malfeasant local officials out of office would go a long way towards preventing the abuses that lead to these kinds of social disturbances. Fortunately, China is already moving in the direction of a press that plays an greater oversight role in society, at least vis-a-vis local government. Although it has not yet expanded local democratic processes, it would seem that such a development is only a matter of time.
However, in the meantime and generally, China should consider whether additional steps may be necessary and helpful. In particular, whether a small adjustment to the organization of its courts and prosecutorial offices would be helpful in checking abusive potential of rural local governments. Quite simply, China should consider separating the management, budgets and personnel authority for the courts and the prosecutors from local government and placing those organs into a separate bureaucratic unit managed vertically, similar to how the military is organizationally distinct from the rest of the Chinese government. Providing for institutional checks and balances is precisely why police in the U.S. generally are under the management and budgetary authority of a city while district attorneys and courts are generally under the management and budgetary authority of a county or state. Such a reform would limit local influence on courts and prosecutors and thus permit those authorities to take action when the kinds of abuses in the Guizhou case occur at the hands of local police and local government authorities. Although not a guarantee of good behavior in every situation, at least the leadership of courts and prosecutorial authorities would not be directly indebted or accountable to the persons most frequently held by the public to be responsible for the abuses in question.
China could implement such a reform relatively simply and with little disruption to CCP governance or policy. Separating the courts and the prosecutors management, budgets and personnel from local government would simply mean that tax revenues from the locality directed to those agencies would have to be funneled upwards and then back down through centralized budgeting. Although personnel would be affected in that public security personnel could no longer be so easily dispatched to the courts or the prosecutors, this would be an improvement in the sense that the position of the procurate and the courts would be raised, making it easier for them to oversee the public security authorities. Finally, reorganizing the management of the courts and procurate would not in any way effect the political or policy directions of those agencies; it would simply mean that a different set of CCP officials would manage them from above rather than from the local level.
From 1949 to 1978, the CCP moved towards an increasingly unitary state structure. It unified the management and control of government agencies, industry, land, social welfare, and all aspects of life. Since 1979, however, China has recognized the value of separating institutions and has permitted farmers to tend separate plots and industries to separate from government control. China's central authorities may now wish to consider whether a reorganization of its courts and prosecutorial systems may be advantageous to the provision of justice to a seemingly impatient public, justice being a necessary ingredient of a harmonious society.
Labels: courts, government, justice, policy, prosecutors
posted by Andy Green at
6:26 AM
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