Law and Politics of Legislative Interpretation in China

This article analyzes the constitutional basis and operational principles of legislative interpretation in China. Based on this analysis, it also proposes some reforms on this unique institutional arrangement in order to improve its performance in terms of its own stated reasons and justifications. I choose institutional competence, impartiality, procedural fairness, reasoning and transparency as the major parameters to evaluate the current system and to calibrate my suggestions, because these values have been accepted by a variety of political and legal systems with different agendas and commitments as essential to an institution with some concern for justice.