I would like to support and reiterate what many other people on this thread have mentioned - that China has made great strides in 30 years to rebuild its legal system.  China is a massive country with a huge population and many different issues than those that Australia and other "western" countries are dealing with.  I wonder what any of the European legal systems looked like 30 years after they were conceived?  I have serious doubts that they came so far, so fast.  Despite the current and potentially enduring problems with the legal system as it is, the progress being made in China should not be underestimated.

I would also like to add that I appreciated it immensely that Professor Cohen began his speech by addressing his topic with some context.  He noted that legal development in China is occuring alongside all kinds of other development, with the country trying to resolve issues such as those related to migrant workers, health, education and property all at the same time, and that legal development can't solve all of the problems China faces.  As well, by prefacing the issues of justice in China with an introduction acknowledging the problems of justice in the United States, I believe he gave a more balanced perspective on issues that countries have delivering justice, generally.  He reinforced, for me, that it is sometimes easier to see the flaws in other systems, rather than examining the very real problems in our own.

With the rush to create a formal and respectable court system over the last few decades, the communist party can perhaps be excused to a (not very large) extent for the depressing state of its nation's judicial system. Nevertheless it has quite clearly been holding back real reform that would allow the creation of a modern and equitable judiciary, due perhaps in part to the party's guiding ideology as well as its desire to maintain power. The convuluted judicial system in China indeed gives the communist party a huge influence on the implementation of the rule of law as others have pointed out, a few examples given by Professor Cohen being the fact that constituional authority is vested in the Committee of the National People's Congress, and not anywhere in the court system, as well as many forms of punishment being 'administrative decisons' not subject to any form of judicial oversight. Another example is also the ability the of certain sectors of the governemnt (such as Party Discipline and Inspection Commission which was mentioned) to take over from the judiciary when investigating certain matters.

It is simple to see from situations such as these that the Communist Party does indeed have a great say in many, what would be considered elsewhere, judicial roles. This, in addition to the other points of note such as its single-party legislature and executive body, clearly give it nigh-absolute authority in the impletmentation of the rule of law.

Also, one thing that stood out and suprised me from Professor Cohen's speech was that forms of collective punishment, on the guilty's family for instance, which one could be forgiven for assuming is a fairly archaic practice no longer in use in any developed nation, is still implemented to a certain extent in modern day China.

Adam Juhasz