7 Judicial Reform

The scope of this chapter is limited to the judicial reform relating to the court and the procuratorate. It can be concluded that, although the current judicial reform is positive and can be regarded as link in the chain of overall political reform, it is not prerequisite to push forward fundamental change in China's political structure since it centres only on the improvement of the work of the courts and the procuratorate as well as the quality of judicial personnel, rather than seriously addressing the judiciary's independence. It is believed that judicial reform will still be progressing, though slowly and sometimes not smoothly, towards the rule of law, which is manifested by the second Five-Year Programme (2005-2010) further to increase the judicial reform issued by the Supreme Court in April 2005. An American legal scholar describes China's legal reform as a bird in cage.Keywords: judicial reform; rule of law