Abstract:  For many years, China’s judicial reform made no substantial progress. Currently, it is still impossible to achieve fundamental judicial reform without initiatives in political reform. However, promoting the rule of law could be a most appropriate point of departure for the political reform. The move entails low cost and low risk. Besides, it’s easy to reach consensus and most unlikely to trigger social disturbance. Judicial reform is the most crucial step towards establishing the rule of law. And judicial independence, as the crux of judicial reform, is the prerequisite for  ensuring judicial justice and also the guide line for the rule of law. Judicial independence is the bottom line and a underlying principle that all have to respect. In fact, how well a country is ruled by law can be measured by the degree of its judicial independence. It is crucial for us to remove some misunderstandings in China, and reiterate the importance of judicial independence. Then, we can then proceed to talk about strategies for promoting judicial reform.

Key words:  judicial reform, top layer designing, judicial independence, reform strategy