Since the opening policy was adopted in China in 1978, the court system has never ceased its agenda of building legal professionalism, whereas it has never succeeded in promoting its authority substantially on checking and balancing the political authority, including the Communist Party of China (the CPC, or the Party). Judicial policies in different periods manifest distinctly in terms of legality enhancement and political subservience. The judicial opinions and guidance of the Chinese Supreme People’s Court (SPC) changed periodically under the leadership of different court presidents. Nonetheless, what had caused the fluctuation of judicial opinions on professionalism and political subservience is an unanswered question that lacks systematic research.

The Thesis observes that the SPC Presidents’ idiosyncrasies during certain periods of time exaggerated some characteristics of the judicial policies that resonate with the priorities of the Party’s imperatives. Moreover, the CPC also dominates both the judicial ideology and personnel arrangement within the court system. Therefore, the Thesis aims to reveal what sort of different roles the Party-governments, the Presidents of the SPC, the judge community and the litigants (or the people) had played through the evolution of the court system, especially with regard to the fluctuation of the legalisation and politicisation of the court system. Among the recent five Five-Year Plans of the Court Reform issued by the SPC, the political factors occurred notably more frequently in the third Five-Year Plan (2009-2013) than the rest, which was released during the presidency of Wang Shengjun (王勝俊, Wang). Thus, this Thesis focuses on the distinct features of the court system in this specific period when the SPC was headed by Wang and explored the subtle interaction between political control and judicial resistance.

Wang showed unwavering commitment to the Party and its Socialist path, and explicit occupational ambition before he entered the court system. Thus, despite receiving no legal training, Wang was called upon to inaugurate as the president of the SPC during the crisis of judicial corruption and social unrest. In this circumstance, Wang was implicitly vested with the task of restoring the Party’s control on the court system as well as enhancing its legitimacy on governance. As the head of the court system, he innovated the methods and mechanisms for the courts to join in public governance and respond to populist needs. In the meanwhile, he emphasised the judicial subservience to political imperatives. Thus, he was widely known for being Policy-oriented during his tenure as President of the SPC (2008-2013). Although being conservative in legal construction, Wang took a proactive stance in the court mobilisation.

Through three perspectives of judicial ideology, internal administration and prioritised works within the court system, the Thesis presents how Wang intended to expand the role of the courts in political and social affairs. On this basis, the Thesis probes into how the dominance of the CPC affects the judicial style and autonomy. The idiosyncrasies of the SPC Presidents echo the Party’s political agenda. Through this mechanism, the CPC may exaggerate its influence on the court system through the leverage of personnel arrangements. In this context, the Thesis concludes that the future of legalistic construction within the court system is still subject to the political wills and whether the values of legality could constantly fit in the realistic needs of national development and the populist expectation.