Halfway to Freedom of Information: The Legislative and Judicial Protection of the Right of Access to Information in China

A right of access to information (ATI) was introduced to China in 2007, creating uncertain hopes that freedom of information may flourish in this party-state with ingrained traditions of secrecy. This book is the first comprehensive assessment of the law and enforcement relating to Chinese citizens' ATI right. It reviews the labyrinth of Chinese laws that bear on government information disclosure, and examines the judicial treatment of the ATI right based on a survey of over 400 representative lawsuits. It especially investigates the extent to which the ATI right has been protected - by laws in book and laws in action - to enable the citizenry to monitor and check the government. A wide range of materials, including statutory and other normative documents, court decisions, news reports and statistics, is meticulously collected and examined. An assessment methodology, which combines empirical study, legal realist observation and doctrinal analysis, is designed to accommodate the characteristics of China's judicial system. This book not only contributes rich sources and fresh approaches to the research on freedom of information, but also sheds new light on the role of Chinese courts in affecting the outcomes of political reforms that respond to mounting social demands for government accountability.

Yongxi Chen is a Senior Research Assistant at the Faculty of Law of The University of Hong Kong. He has published on freedom of information, personal data protection and comparative administrative law. He has participated in preparing the drafts of China’s first local regulation on freedom of information and other local legislation on informatization. Before receiving his PhD in Law at the University of Hong Kong in 2013, he obtained a postgraduate diploma in European law at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, and his LLM and LLB at Sun Yat-sen University, China.