LUOYANG, China - Judge Li Huijuan happened to be in the courthouse file room when clerks, acting on urgent orders, began searching for a ruling on a mundane case about seed prices. "I handled that case," Judge Li told the clerks, surprised that anyone would be interested.
But within days, the Luoyang Middle Court's discipline committee contacted her. Provincial officials had angrily complained that the ruling contained a serious political error. Faced with a conflict between national and provincial law, Judge Li had declared the provincial law invalid. In doing so, she unwittingly made legal history, setting in motion a national debate about judicial independence in China's closed political system.
In many countries, including the United States, a judge tossing out a lower-level law would scarcely merit attention. But in China, the government, not a court, is the final arbiter of law. What Judge Li had considered judicial common sense, provincial legislators considered a judicial revolt. Their initial response was to try to crush it. Judge Li, who had on the bench less than three years, feared her career might be finished."An order by those in power has forced local leaders, none of whom dared to stand on principle, to sacrifice me," she wrote in rebuttal. "I'm just an ordinary person, a female judge who tried to protect the law. Who is going to protect my rights?"
Faced with the complex demands of governing a chaotic, modernizing country, China's leaders have embraced the rule of law as the most efficient means of regulating society. But a central requirement in fulfilling that promise lies unresolved - whether the governing Communist Party intends to allow an independent judiciary.
The 2003 ruling by Judge Li has become, quite unexpectedly, a landmark case for the evolving Chinese legal system. Her plight exposed the limits on judicial autonomy in China and the political retribution faced by judges. But it also revealed the rising influence of legal reformers. Scholars and lawyers rallied to Judge Li's defense and embraced her ruling as a test case, if an accidental one, for a more autonomous court system.
"For the first time, a judge announced a local law or regulation was void," said Xiao Taifu, a member of the Beijing Lawyers Association, which petitioned the central government on Judge Li's behalf. "It was historic. For the legal process in China, it was a first, and it carried deep meaning."
Details here from the New York Times.