Transparency and Legitimacy in Chinese Criminal Procedure: Beyond Adversarial Dogmas

When he invoked China's mainstream academia to criticize the "weaknesses" of Chinese criminal procedure-such as dossier-based proceedings, powerful prosecutors, and activist judiciary-the author, Shuai Zhang, was told by his supervisors in the Netherlands that this was just how things were done. Later on, he found that adversarial dogmas are common in the Chinese legal community, with the textbooks on criminal procedure playing a role to mislead people. While many exemplary common law countries have deviated from their adversarial traditions to begin to embrace an inquisitorial approach-especially in pre-trial procedure-adversarial dogmas do not speak to each and every country. In a broader sense, the author cautions Chinese liberal intellectuals against their inherent, and perhaps unconscious, sense of superiority over both the officialdom and the populace regarding political and legal issues. This sense of superiority blinds them to what really contributes to the well-being of the country and the people, and drive various "window dressing" reforms rather than functional improvements. Dissertation. (Series: Willem Pompe Institute, Vol. 87) [Subject: Chinese Studies, Criminal Law]