Tina Yao

Tina Yao is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne Law School and a member of the Asian Law Centre and the Melbourne Criminal Law Research Forum. Her thesis examines the relationship between administration and criminal law through a jurisdictional analysis of how the law responds to the issue of corruption in Australia and Mainland China.

Prior to her candidature, Tina interned at Dentons’ Beijing office. She has provided research assistance for a book project on the Japanese criminal justice system, and assisted with the editing of the upcoming Elgar Concise Encyclopedia of Asian Law at the Melbourne Law School.

Tina holds a Juris Doctor, and a Bachelor Arts with a double major in Sociology and Politics, both from the University of Melbourne.

Thesis Title

Before the Law – Administration, Jurisdiction and the Criminal Law

Thesis Summary

My thesis looks at administration by public authorities and analyses how it interacts with criminal law. Specifically, it analyses administration by considering how the law responds to the problem of corruption in two jurisdictions, New South Wales and Mainland China. Moving beyond the public discourse of rule of law and integrity, I instead trace practices of law, institutions, procedures and officials in the anti-corruption domain that give shape to the relationship between law and administration. The thesis queries how legally authorised practices of institutions, like the ICAC and the Supervision Commission of China, create, represent and dispose of legal relations.

Supervisors

• Associate Professor Peter Rush
• Professor Sarah Biddulph

• Criminal Law
• Jurisprudence
• Evidence and Proof
• Chinese Law
• Law and Society