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Forensic science is crucial for the administration of justice and case investigation. In China, political-legal organizations, including the courts, public security, procuratorate, and judicial administration, developed their own forensic practices before 2004. As a result, the frequent and repeated appraisals undermined judicial authority and credibility. Thus, a law was published in 2005 to improve the uniform forensic management system by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, leading to the establishment of the Forensic Administration of the Ministry of Justice in 2006. During this process, the increased accreditation and interflow highlighted the role of consensus in forensic standards for forensic service providers to avoid uncertainty regarding the methods used and interpretation of results. In 2017, a policy document was promulgated again to strengthen the importance of the uniform standards, which also proposed to establish a new national technical committee for the standardization of forensic science by the General Office of the State Council. In 2018, despite the continuing problems concerning uniformity, the Forensic Administration of the Ministry of Justice was merged into the Public Legal Services Administration. Yet, there is still a long way to go for the national technical committee for the standardization of forensic science. This paper analyses the evolution of forensic standards internationally and nationally, discusses the existing problems, and proposes relative solutions. Moreover, it discusses the future of standards development with the deepening of the reformation of both the national standardization and judicial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The technological innovation of wind power is crucial to energy security and energy structure transformation. The Chinese government has been committed to improving the innovation of the wind power industry for decades. Although academic researchers and wind power policymakers have been widely concerned about the absolute score of innovation output, concentrating on innovation output in isolation is ultimately insufficient. This article goes beyond bean counting and evaluates the innovation of the Chinese wind power industry from the perspective of relative efficiency, and then assesses the efforts of the government to improve innovation efficiency (IE). The study uses the data of 105 wind power listed enterprises in China over the period 2008–2019. According to the recommendation made by the existing papers, IE is defined as the capability to generate innovation outputs per unit of R&D investment. Regression analysis is applied to test the policy effect. During 2008–2019, the average value of IE of Chinese wind power industry is 0.196. The IE of wind power enterprises in eastern China (0.265) is higher than that in central and western China (0.169). Besides, the regression results indicate that all categories of wind power innovation policies contribute to the IE of wind power industry in China. Furthermore, the innovation policies issued by the departments of the State Council significantly improve the IE of wind power industry, but the innovation policies from the National People's Congress and the State Council have no significant impacts on IE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though more than three decades have passed since the launch of Strike Hard in 1983, its impact on crimes remains. Most of the literature on the campaign so far has been theoretically and methodologically limited. Using historical materials and interview data, this paper establishes an integrated theoretical framework and aims at investigating whether and how a moral panic was constructed. This study argues that the top leader played a decisive role in engineering the moral panic during the 1983 Strike Hard operated through a top-down approach under the Chinese political structure. In short, exploring events from the perspective of moral panic, this study gives a deep insight into the Chinese criminal justice system in response to crimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong provides a unique case study on the roles and functions of the judiciary within an authoritarian or semi-authoritarian sovereign. Under the unique constitutional arrangement in Hong Kong, a liberal common law judiciary in a highly sophisticated modern metropolis is encapsulated within a Socialist-Leninist sovereign regime that ideologically rejects separation of powers, independence of the judiciary and values of individual liberalism. Notwithstanding the sharp ideological differences and the greatly asymmetrical distribution of social, economic and political powers in this One Country, Two Systems constitutional model, it is argued that the relationship between the courts and the authoritarian sovereign power is and has been complex and dynamic. The Hong Kong courts have been able to create their institutional space by establishing an impressive liberal constitutional common law, but that constitutional space is shrinking as the over-zealous sovereign is increasingly assertive of its views on matters that it perceives to be affecting state interests. By examining a series of controversial decisions, this paper argues that there are reasons that the courts could, with creativity and sensitivity, maintain a delicate and balanced relationship with the sovereign without succumbing to the political pressure, but that the greatest threat of independence of the judiciary comes from within the judiciary in internalizing the values of the socialist state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies how Chinese State actors address treaty practices that go beyond the wording of applicable law designated to separate the treaty-making power between the executive and the legislative branches, particularly whether the executive branch has exploited its institutional advantages in foreign affairs to circumvent the statutory interbranch checks amid the proliferation of treaties to which China has subscribed. Such practices concentrate on the following five issues: the textual inconsistency in the meaning attached to the term 'treaty' under different Chinese laws; the unclear distinction between important agreements and sole-executive agreements, and ministerial agreements; the State president's lack of a constitutional or statutory grant of affirmative power to negotiate treaties; the State president's non-performing role in ratifying treaties and important agreements; and the mismatch between the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee's treaty-making power and domestic law-making power. This article concludes that problems of extra-textual practices, including difficulties in identifying the hierarchical order of a ratified/approved treaty and other consequences of ultra vires exercise of treaty power by the executive branch, do not occur in the Chinese treaty-making process. The State Council and its departments do not take advantage of sole-executive agreements to covertly expand their domestic affairs authorities and have prudently cooperated with the NPC and the Standing Committee to avoid violating applicable law. The ultimate decision-making power of the NPC Standing Committee in ratifying treaties and important agreements is warranted, and the mismatch between its treaty-making power and domestic authority has been solved through internal cooperation with the State Council and delegation of authority by the NPC. The president's treaty-negotiation power has developed from the long-standing constitutional practices recognized by the State Council and the NPC, and the acquiescence of the NPC can also justify the president's failure to perform a symbolic declaratory role in treaty making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the legislative development in China for 2013. It mentions the five-year legislative plan initiated by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC). It notes the issuance of two basic laws, and adopted amendments by the Standing Committee of the NPC to 21 basic laws in 2013. It adds the six administrative regulations, adopted amendments, and abolished four other regulations issued by the State Council.