This book is the result of my decade-long effort to understand and assess the development of the judicial system over the past 30 years of post-Mao China. I was an intern at the Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing in 1983 when the first ‘Strike Hard’ anti-crime campaign was launched in China, and this brief yet unforgettable experience of working at the Court had a long-lasting impact on my academic interest in the Chinese judicial system. Since 1985, I have studied and worked outside China; however, my curiosity and passion concerning the court, as a place where justice can be fairly applied, has always lived with me simply because, as a legal academic, one has to constantly face the issue of law enforcement by the courts. Since 1999, I have grasped any opportunity possible to visit courts in different parts of China, despite the strict entrance controls applying to people without a Chinese ID card. Moreover, since 2001, I have co-directed training courses for Chinese judges, prosecutors and lawyers in China under a number of projects sponsored by the Netherlands Embassy in China. This has provided me with ample opportunities to learn about, and witness, the way in which the Chinese judicial system has transited towards a sophisticated and contentious operating mechanism. Nowadays, Chinese courts bear the onerous task of resolving disputes that often involve legal, economic, social and political interests which are frequently contradictory. Having published my first article on the judicial system in China in 2002, I decided to write my monograph in 2007. My thoughts on the matter have always been there, despite the demands that other work priorities inevitably placed on me. It has taken an unexpectedly long journey to complete this book, however, I must admit that the passage of time has enabled me to rethink time and again the many complex and entangled issues present in a judicial practice undergoing transition. No doubt over the past years I have learned from, and been inspired by, a large number of colleagues and friends in China. I am deeply grateful to those judges, lawyers, legal scholars and prosecutors who generously shared their experiences and opinions with me at the various stages of my writing this book. For reasons of confidentiality, I cannot mention their names here, but I must acknowledge that without their insightful and up-to-date information, I could never have attained the sufficient knowledge and confidence required to produce this book.