Home -> Law Blog Directory -> International Law Blogs -> China Law Blog

International Law

: China Law Blog

China's Incremental Revolution. Litigation As Political Force.

By Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson

Very interesting post on the Transnational Law Blog on a very interesting Christian Science Monitor article. The post is entitled, "Another Reason to Have Faith in China's Maturing Legal System," and the CSM article is entitled, "How one man in China strengthens the rule of law: Hao Jinsong, a Beijing lawyer, defies authorities with small lawsuits." They are on how a Chinese lawyer uses China's court system to accomplish democratic change that almost certainly could not be accomplished any other way. Great example of how law can create incremental change.

As we argued in a previous post entitled, A Reason to Have Faith in China's Legal System, small lawsuits vindicating the rights of the average Chinese citizen will engender within the citizenry a general interest and trust in the legal system, which will perpetuate a rule of law system. Our previous article concerned a small legal aid station in Xi'an that represented migrant construction workers, and this current article concerns public interest lawsuits, which reminds me of the work that made Ralph Nader famous. In the present article, the lawyer, Hao Jinsong, argues that the law will grow weaker if people don't use legal recourse to defend themselves because they think it's useless but, he says, "When ... people use the law as naturally as they use chopsticks, China will be close to democracy."

Both the post and the article are well worth a read.

Full post as published by China Law Blog on February 23, 2008 (boomark / email).