This article provides an analytical account of how politics and law in China areorganically integrated in the institutional architecture of courts as designedby the Chinese Communist Party (“the Party”). This design allowsthe Party to retain its supreme authority in the interpretation, application,and enforcement of the law through its institutional control over courts. At thesame time, the Party can, under this design, also afford to grant an autonomoussphere where courts can perform their adjudicative functions with minimalinterference from the Party, as long as the Party is assured of full authorityto determine the scope of the “autonomous-zone,” to impose ruleson it, and to revoke it when necessary. Consequently, courts assume a doublecharacter: a pliant political agent on the one hand and a legal institution ofits own agency on the other.
