Authours: Justin Pwavra Teriwajah*
Abstract
China has embarked on a lot of reforms since the late 1970s up to date. The reforms have been in many areas including the reform of its laws. As recently as May, 2015 the National People’s Congress enacted the Administrative Litigation Law for the People’s Republic of China. This law is a noteworthy milestone in China’s efforts towards comprehensive legal reforms in line with building a modern socialist state. This law therefore gives judicial review of administrative action a shot in the arm as it has further improved the legal regime for the search for administrative justice and rule of law in China. However, an undue focus on the law alone may be misleading because in China’s judicial system, other factors play an equally important role in the outcome of administrative litigation. In this paper, I argue that even though the Administrative Litigation Law of 2015 is very satisfactory in creating a good playing field for the resolution of grievances against administrative agencies, a litigant ought to be aware of the whole gamut of factors both within and without the law/courts that can account for his success or failure at achieving administrative justice. The thrust of my argument is that the vulnerability of the Administrative Divisions of the people’s courts to political influence peddlers is a major factor among others which may work either in favour of or against the litigant in his search for justice through administrative litigation.
Keywords: Judicial Review, Promises, Challenges
