The aim of this research is to examine the criminal justice system in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to illustrate the role of judges, and to describe the current scale of judicial independence within the realm of Chinese legal culture and the current political system. The importance of this research is to collect evidence which defines the nature of policy debate on China's judicial reform project to promote greater independence. The thesis begins with an overview of the current Chinese judicial system. Chapter One takes account of the considerable problems of the judiciary and the debate over reform which is addressed in existing literature, including the most recent policy guidelines of judicial reform announced in late 2007. According to the policy, it is clear that judicial reform is ongoing; what the Chinese Communist government requires is a mature, realistic and overarching reform program that promotes justice, ensures rule of law, and serves to engender political and social stability in China. Put simply, judicial reform towards greater independence must be compatible with the characteristics of Chinese society. Based upon such a background, the research questions and methodology are introduced in Chapter Two. This thesis focuses on two research questions:  Question One - How can ‘Chinese characteristics’ be understood in relation to judicial reform?  Question Two - What are the current factors that have limited judicial independence? Three methods were employed to obtain data relevant to my research. Firstly, I employed content analysis of secondary data, whereby I reviewed Chinese constitutional and criminal legal codes, and literature on Chinese judicial culture, independence and reform. Secondly, I generated primary empirical data, and employed a structured interview with 60 judges in order to understand judges’ feelings regarding judicial independence. Thirdly, I undertook participant observation, in which I acted as a lawyer's assistant involved in a criminal case, in which a suspect had pleaded not guilty. During this period, I conducted unstructured interviews with five lawyers and one county-level Chief-Prosecutor. Chapter Three aims to answer the first research question by illustrating ‘Chinese characteristics’ relevant to judicial reform. On considering Chinese characteristics, according to the most recent CPC guideline policy, judicial reform invokes relationships with legal culture, contemporary political and economic circumstances. Therefore, an analysis of relevant literature is made in order to understand Confucian legal traditions, Marxist and Maoist legal ideology, current political principles and economic conditions. At the end of this chapter, a brief of analysis of the significant relationship between rule of law and economic growth is made in order to explain why China needs greater judicial independence. Chapter Four, Five, Six and Seven form the core of the dissertation, and answer the second research question, intended to provide an overview of the extent of existing judicial independence in China, and highlight the major factors that could influence judges’ decisions. I have analysed judges’ responses regarding the current constitutional and institutional design, and on the recommendation of some judges, selected some additional evidence to highlight influences over the judiciary from other government bodies. In Chapter Four, findings from the interviews with judges concerning their occupational environment are analysed, to give a picture of the judge's position in China today. Chapter Five explores the Congress’ lawful power of supervising judicial decisions on individual cases. This presents one of the core Socialist constitutional configurations, whereby all state organs are answerable to the Congress. Following this, findings are given from the participant observation of a criminal trial in which a suspect pleaded not guilty. These findings are analysed in Chapter Six in order to provide a detailed examination of the links between the executive and the judicial branches. Chapter Seven analyses the relationship between the Communist Party and judges, which is the most sensitive, yet unavoidable topic regarding judicial reform in China. Chapter Eight brings the findings of the two research questions together to engage in a comprehensive debate of policy and draft possible judicial reform suggestions which may promote judicial independence within the parameters of established ‘Chinese Characteristics’.

This thesis is an empirical exploration of cracked trials at Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court. Cracked trials are cases which are listed for trial but on the day they are due to be tried are disposed of in some other way. The thesis presents quantitative and qualitative data extracted from prosecution case files, as well as interviews with legal professionals, to examine the reasons for cracked trials, focusing on those trials which crack as a result of a late guilty plea. The data are analysed in order to explore the features of cracked trials, and the defence lawyer’s role in late guilty pleas (identified as significant by previous studies) is also examined. The existing literature has identified plea bargaining as a significant cause of late guilty pleas; the extent to which this was a feature within the sampled cases is assessed, and the nature of the plea bargains which were present in the data is explored. It is argued that the data demonstrate that plea bargaining played a key role in those cases which cracked as a result of a late guilty plea and that several types of plea bargain were prevalent within the sample. In light of these findings, the thesis analyses the reasons for the criminal justice system’s reluctance to acknowledge the role of plea bargaining in cracked trials (despite some recent formalisation of plea bargaining itself), and examines the extent to which grounds for policy and academic objections to plea bargaining and cracked trials were evidenced in the data collected. The thesis then considers whether either policy objections (that cracked trials represent defendants ‘playing the system’) or academic objections, (that plea bargains create pressure on defendants to plead guilty, and cracked trials are a manifestation of that pressure) are necessarily true, and whether plea bargaining could alternatively be viewed as a legitimate consensual or contractual exchange of concessions. The thesis concludes with the argument that a contradictory and hypocritical approach to plea bargaining has created a situation whereby the significance of plea bargaining is often ignored by a criminal justice system which has come to rely upon it. It is argued that the policies pursued in an attempt to reduce cracked trials are therefore flawed in their failure to acknowledge that cracked trials are inextricably bound together with plea bargaining.

Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation examined restorative and retributive justice systems in order to clarify and uncover the real nature of Gacaca courts which is a mixture of both with more elements of the retributive system. The dissertation also traces the origin of Gacaca courts through a historical background of Rwanda, a description of the Gacaca courts and their procedures, outlines the principles of restorative and retributive justice and compares each to Gacaca courts, in the process revealing the real nature of Gacaca.

A thesis which explores the possibility of introducing Bayesian probability methods into the criminal justice system, and in doing so, exposing and eradicating some common fallacies. This exposure aims to reduce miscarriages of justice by illustrating that some evidence routinely relied upon by the prosecution, may not have as high a probative value towards its ultimate hypothesis of ‘guilt’ as has been traditionally thought and accepted.

Respect is a value whose importance in contemporary criminal justice many would endorse in principle. It is well-established that every person, by virtue of his or her humanity, has a claim to respect that need not be negotiated and cannot be forfeited. As the principal means by which to recognise a person's intrinsic worth, respect is attitudinal but also requires a degree of expressive action. The core claim of the thesis is that at two defining points in the criminal process - policing and imprisonment - there is an overwhelming preoccupation with instrumental outcomes, with the result that respect is understood reductively and, at best, as a weak side-constraint on the pursuit of those outcomes. The thesis takes the form of a sustained critique of the respect deficit in policing and imprisonment. It is especially concerned with the ways in which both institutions are merely constrained and not characterised by respect. Respect shows great flexibility as a concept of critical enquiry, in particular, in its striking capacity to sharpen our critique of a diverse range of policies and practices. It swiftly emerges, for example, that both institutions appeal to the word 'respect' - relying on its inclusive ethos in official documentation when it is expedient to do so - but rarely and only superficially address the prior question of what it is to respect and be respected. Despite much criminological activity on the 'democratic design' of these institutions in recent decades, respect is more akin to a slogan than a foundational value of criminal justice practice. Yet respect is not only of analytic merit. It is also a matter of material significance. The dominant institutional approach to respect would prove difficult to correct, sustained as it is by intuitive understandings, convenient fictions and a preoccupation with outcomes. With a sense of modest realism, the thesis concludes by considering how best to embed respect in policing and imprisonment, anticipating the challenges - as well as the advances that could be made - in inscribing respectful relations between state and subject.