Category: China
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Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere and Andrew Geddis: The New Zealand Court of Appeal on Extradition to the PRC
The recent massive street demonstrations against a proposal to enable extradition of some criminal suspects from Hong Kong to mainland China (as well as Taiwan and Macau) have focused global attention on the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) criminal justice and judicial system, with protestors voicing their fears that any extradition arrangement would expose those…
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Mathias Cheung: The Hong Kong Government’s proposed electoral reform violates the Basic Law and the Sino-British Joint Declaration
The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has recently initiated a formal inquiry into the implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration. The inquiry will focus on the constitutionality of the Hong Kong Government’s proposed electoral reforms and its compliance with international law obligations. As the biblical saying goes: ‘faith , if good deeds do not…
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Comment on Hong Kong: Cora Chan: When, if ever, will Hong Kong see democracy?
Seventeen years ago China resumed sovereignty over Hong Kong. China promised a high degree of autonomy and separate economic, legal and social systems for Hong Kong in an international treaty, the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration. These promises were concretised in Hong Kong’s post-handover constitution, the Basic Law. Hong Kong enjoys more governance powers than many…
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Christopher Forsyth and Nitish Upadhyaya: Crown Immunity after the End of Empire in Hong Kong and India
Crown Immunity is a recondite branch of Public Law that seldom makes an appearance in the Law Reports but it does potentially raise grave constitutional issues. It is surely ‘fundamental to the rule of law that the Crown, like other public authorities, should bear its fair share of legal liability and be answerable for wrongs…
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Report on the UK-China Public Law Conference 2013: The Rule of Law in Modern Constitutionalism
On 2-6 September 2013 Renmin University Law School in Beijing, China hosted the first conference of its kind uniting public law scholars from British and Chinese Universities. Over the course of five days scholars discussed a variety of topics relating to the conference theme: The Rule of Law in Modern Constitutionalism. The conference was organised…
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Rogier Creemers: The Constitutionalism Debate in China
Over the past few months, a heated debate about the role of the Constitution in Chinese political life has emerged. This debate comes in the wake of the 18th Party Congress and the handover of power to the fifth generation of leaders with Xi Jinping becoming General Secretary of the Party, and equally importantly, Chairman…
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Nick Barber: Does China Enjoy Greater Legitimacy Than Any Western State?
I was listening to the radio a little while ago, and heard Martin Jacques talking about China. I listened with renewed concentration. Jacques was formerly editor of Marxism Today, so he is a man who knows a thing or two about oppressive pseudo-socialist regimes. Much of what Jacques had to say was insightful, but one…
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Ruiyi Li: Case-law adopted by China?
On the 26th of November 2011, the Supreme People’s Court of China (SPCC) announced the first set of ‘guiding cases’: two civil law cases and two criminal cases. This marks the establishment of the guiding cases system in China. What is a guiding case? A guiding case is a judgement selected by the SPCC from judgments…