ABSTRACT
Recent developments in China's courts reflect a paradox largely avoided in literature on the subject. Changes to courts' formal authority have been limited, courts still struggle to address basic impediments to serving as fair adjudicators, and they continue to be subject to Communist Party oversight. They have also confronted new challenges, in particular pressure from media reports and popular protests. At the same time, however, the party-state has permitted, and at times encouraged, both significant bottom-up development of the courts and their expanded use as fora for the airing of rights-based grievances, including administrative litigation, class actions and a small number of discrimination claims filed directly under the Constitution. Some courts have engaged in significant innovation. Judges are better qualified than in the past, and are increasingly looking to other courts and judges, rather than Party superiors, in deciding novel or difficult cases. As a result, courts are increasingly coming into conflict with other state institutions, growing numbers of welleducated judges arc developing professional identities, and popular attention to both the problems and the potential roles of the courts appears higher than ever before.
