Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2015
Labor unrest is on the rise in China and likely to increase as the leadership grapples with a dangerous combination of an economic slowdown and the lack of effective institutions to cope with worker unrest. A new set of regulations put forward by one province offers a potential solution while at the same time illustrating the difficulty the Communist Party faces in effectively addressing workers’ grievances.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2015
The most recent message is chillingly clear: The grasp of the Party will not be loosened, and as a result, changes needed for deep reform of China’s legal system will remain out of reach.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, January 30, 2015
It remains to be seen whether the work of judicial reform can increase the relative independence of the courts by reducing the influence of local government and party organizations over them without being regarded as a threat to party dominance.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2015
If the authorities use the new legislation to genuinely punish polluters and officials who conspire with them in the battle for China’s environment, citizens may be encouraged to support the use of law and courts to combat not only pollution, but other social ills as well.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2014
If China’s leadership is genuine about wanting to clean up the party, it should explore the possibility of moving the power to investigate and adjudicate cases of corruption from the party’s internal disciplinary body to the same prosecutors who handle criminal wrongdoing by non-party members, or to a new government agency.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, December 17, 2014
The campaign is intended to increase discipline within the party as well as to target corruption. Recent media reports suggest, however, that the anticorruption campaign is hampered by both bureaucratic resistance and the limited effectiveness in general of political campaigns in today’s China.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2014
There is no doubt that legal reform in China will be carried out under the control and leadership of the Communist Party—while the repressive crackdown on speech and conduct threatening party rule continues.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2014
Both reports strongly reaffirmed the party’s control over law and legal institutions while alluding to pilot programs and reform plans intended to translate the leadership’s vague commitment to “governing the country according to law” into practice.
Stanley Lubman writes for Wall Street Journal Online, October 8, 2014
The campaigns against pollution and corruption should be clearly linked whenever possible to the current emphasis on raising the influence of the judicial system. The reverse holds true as well: improving legal enforcement would add weight and credibility to the drives against corruption and pollution.
Stanley Lubman writes for The Wall Street Journal, China Real Time, September 10, 2014
The importance to the leadership of both the campaign against corruption and the crackdown on dissent strongly suggests that whatever measures are planned to carry out legal reform, the use of public confessions and “open trials” like that of Bo Xilai’s are likely to continue.