News

By Angie Yang. October 18, 2013.

Xu Fangzhong, Professor from University of Hong Kong, gave an instructive lecture on Judicial Independence to SHUFE Law students on Oct.15th, 2013. Dr. Hu Ling hosted the lecture and gave a warm welcome to Professor Xu.
 

Professor Xu Fangzhong

Because judicial independence and rule of law are in close connection, Professor Xu started with the concept of rule of law. In his point of view, in order to limit and control the power of states and to avoid arbitrary power, setting the rule of law is necessary. Then he gave audiences an example about the certain procedures used to limit the government officials' power in old China. He also quoted Albert Dicey's theory to explain the three aspects of rule of law. Furthermore, he stressed that the economic development deeply relied on the rule of law.
 

"Everybody should be equal under the law, but that kind of equality never happened" said Professor Xu. "If you keep too much power in any single person or single branch of government, they will abuse it." Then he continued to explain the separation of powers. According to his view, State powers can be divided into five parts which are judicial power, executive power, legislative power, examination power and supervisory power. Base on this, the power of branches of government should be limited, the abuse of state power can be minimized. Meanwhile, Professor Xu illustrated examples of traditional China, U.S and Hong Kong. He emphasized that judges must be financially independent and politically independent and that judicial independence does exist in reality.

At the end of the lecture, students actively raised their questions and thoughts on judicial independence. At last, Dr.Hu Ling expressed many thanks to Professor Xu and invited Xu to visit SHUFE Law more frequently and to give more lectures to SHUFE Law students.