Kobe University Repository : Kernel タイトル Legal Education in China : A Great Leap Forward of Professionalism Title 著者 Jｉ, Weidong Author(s) 掲載誌・巻号・ページ Kobe University law review,39:1-21 Citation 刊行日 2005 Issue date 資源タイプ Departmental Bulletin Paper / 紀要論文 Resource Type 版区分 publisher Resource Version 権利 Rights DOI JaLCDOI 10.24546/00422145 URL http://www.lib.kobe-u.ac.jp/handle_kernel/00422145 PDF issue: 2021-09-30 1 Legal Education in China: A Great Leap Forward of Professionalism* Ji Weidong** INTRODUCTION Legal education has been going ahead by leaps and bounds in the People’s Republic of China in the last twenty-five years. As a result, the conception of legal professionalism began to strike root among the law circles and the technocrats of governmental organs, and to set off a rapid chain reaction in this party-state. It is common knowledge that in modern China, the activities of attorneys at law had been held back since 1957, and afterwards the judicial system was almost entirely destroyed during the said “Cultural Revolution” period of 1966-1976. The legal education was also under the similar circumstances (See Graph 1).1 In about eight years (1964-1970, 1972), all of the universities and colleges did not enroll new law students, and in eleven years (1966-1976), all of the educational institutions of law were closed except two departments of law left in Peking University (Beijing University) and Jilin University, and many professors of law had to change their job then. For example, Prof. Wang Yuhua (J.S.D. of Indiana University) became a shop employee, and Prof. Xu Kaishu (LL. B. of Soochow Law School) taught in a middle school for about thirty years.2 The judicial system currently in operation was reconstructed in 1976, and in reality, it has been normalized and enhanced since 1980 when the Organic Law of the People’s Courts began to be put into effect and the role of attorneys in litigation was defined by a new legislation, the Interim Regulations of the People’s Republic of China on Attorneys at Law. Correspondingly, legal education has also been forgoing rapidly ahead since 1978 when the entrance examination system of universities/colleges was * Earlier versions and parts of this article were presented at the JASL International Symposium “The Role of the Judiciary in Changing Societies” in Tokyo, 9-10 June 2001, the EAI Seminar in Singapore, 1 March 2002, and the 18th LAWASIA Biennial Conference “A Dynamic Asia Pacific: Legal Issues in 2003 and Beyond” in Tokyo, 1-5 September 2003. ** Professor of the Graduate School of Law, Kobe University. 1Cf. Han Depei and Stephen Kanter, “Legal EducationAmerican in JournalChina”, of Comparative Law Vol.32 No.3 (1984), Zhang Youyu and Wang Shuwen (eds.) Forty Years of the PRC’s Legal Science: 1949-1989 (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press, 1989) pp.12-19, Tang Nengsong and others, Tracks of Exploration : A History in Brief of the Development of Legal Education in China (Beijing : Law Press, 1995), Huai Xiaofeng, “A Introduction to China’s Legal Education System”, China Law (quarterly, Hong Kong) 1997 No.4 (1997) pp.10-12, Fang Liufang, “A Survey of Legal Education in China”, in He Weifang (ed.) The Road of China’s Legal Education (Beijing: The China University of Political Science and Law Press, 1997), pp.3-53, Li Huade and Guo Meisong, “Legal Education in China”, Hiroshima Shudo Legal Studies Vol. 24 No. 1 (2001). 2 See Wan Jingbo and others, “The Legal Elites Who Had Been Forgotten for Thirty Years”, The South Weekend (weekly; Guangzhou) No.987 (January 9, 2003) pp.1-2. 2 KOBE UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW [ No. 39 resumed. Thus I have to limit the coverage of discussions about the development of legal education in China within the present stage of the last twenty-five years, the existing situation and the unfinished reform project for the near future. In China today, it is possible to divid the legal education into four parts: (1) regular undergraduate education undertaken in universities or colleges, (2) professional education of Juris Master program which is modeled on the American style J. D. program, (3) continuing education (including adult education) for legal practitioners on the job, and (4) vocational education at the high school level such as judicial schools. This article will center on the first two types, namely regular university/college courses of legal education and higher professional training programs. I Recalling the Rapid Development of Legal Education (1) Changes of Some Important Statistics As mentioned above, the end of the “Cultural Revolution” ushered in a new era for legal education in China. Two law departments and one legal college as the rare survivals began to recruit 256 students through national entrance examination of universities and colleges in 1977 after being suspended for many years. The size of enrolment steeply rose to 995 (of three departments and three colleges) the next year, 2041 (of six departments and four colleges) in the third year, and 2838 in 1980. The admission system of legal postgraduates (LL.M. degree course) began to resume activities in 1979. In 1987, 51 universities and colleges had set up their law department or legal courses, and 5 special colleges/universities of political sciences and law were in a period of great prosperity. The total number of law students in campuses this year was 42,034 (not counting 3951 postgraduates for legal research), 73 times of 576 law students in 1977. China’s legal education in the 1990s had a more rapid development (See Table 1, Table 2), and law became a very hot major in universities and colleges. According to the statistics publicized in 1999 by the Ministry of Justice, there were 214 universities which had law faculties, and it was reported that the number had gone up to about 240 at the end of the 20th century, among them five special legal universities/colleges are directly subordinated to this Ministry 3. And the annual number of graduated law 3 “A Survey and Prospects of the Legal Education in China” (August of 1999), in Huo Xiandan (ed.) The Development and Transformation of China’s Legal Education (1978-1998) (Beijing: Law Press, 2004) pp.129-133. In addition, The Ministry of Justice also had two cadre training colleges: Central Political-Legal College for Management Cadres (1985-1997) and the Central Educational College for Judicial and Police Officers (1956-2000, the predecessor of the Central Institute for Correctional Police). Since the late 1980s, this Ministry has been running the China National Attorneys Correspondence Centre, which was a form of distance legal education for the practising lawyers. 2004] LEGAL EDUCATION IN CHINA: A GREAT LEAP FORWARD OF PROFESSIONALISM 3 students in 2000 was approaching 20,000. (2) Two Periods of the Developing Legal Education and the Trend Table 1 shows some primary data of legal education of three symbolic and important years. 1987 may be considered as the starting point of legal professionalism in China, because the National Bar Examination began to be held in the preceding year, and the Ministry of Justice issued a circular on engaging foreign academic lawyers as a teacher or consultant to improve legal education on April 27, 1987. And 1993 is the turning point of legal education, because two crucial national conferences on legal education were held and the concept of legal service market was officially accepted in this year. It is also able to say that 2000 is the gestational period of a unified community of legal interpretation, because Judges Law and Procurators Law were both amended for heightening the professional requirements, and the unified National Judicial Examination for judges, procurators and attorneys was designed in this year (the amended laws and judicial examination plan were adopted in the next year). According to Table 1 and its historical context or related narrative, the legal education during the last twenty-five years thus may be divided into two periods taking the year of 1993 as the watershed. By the end of that year, China has rebuilt or newly set up 135 regular colleges/ departments of law, 114 continuing higher educational schools of law, and 58 vocational judicial schools and police schools.4 The first period before 1993 was the restoration phase of legal education, which was characterized by legal instrumentalism and the seeds of legal professionalism; and the second period after 1993 until 2002 had been the phase of legal education development in an all-round way, which was characterized by legal commercialism and the steep rise of legal professionalism. In the 21st century, legal education in China will surely have a qualitative leap toward the higher stage of legal professionalism. According to the “Ninth Five-Year Plan of Legal Education and the 2010 Prospects of Development of Legal Education” made by the Ministry of Justice, the percentage of law graduates in all of regular college graduates is going to rise from 4% in 2000 to 4.5% in 2010 when the population of attorneys become 150,000, and the long-term aim for attorneys growth was fixed to 300,000 by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s. It is clear that legal education in China still has very great potentialities. 4 See Huo Xiandan, “Legal Profession and Legal Education”, available at webpage http://www.iolaw.org.cn/shownews.asp?id=569 (access date: June 26, 2003). As for the development of legal profession, especially attorneys at law and law offices/firms, cf. Ji Weidong “Professionalità e Dimensione Internasionale Dell’ avvocatura in Cina” (trans, by Maria C. Reale) Sociologia del diritto n. 2, 1993, pp.99-121.