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• International human rights standards require effective remedies for official violations of citizen rights. Despite these guarantees, Chinese citizens face formidable obstacles in seeking remedies to government actions that violate their legal rights and constitutionally protected freedoms. External government and Communist Party controls continue to limit the independence of the Chinese judiciary. Party officials control the selection of top judicial personnel in all courts, including the Supreme People's Court, China's highest judicial authority. Since 2005, the government has restricted the efforts of private lawyers and human rights defenders who challenge government abuses. The All China Lawyers Association issued a guiding opinion that restricts the ability of lawyers to handle cases involving large groups of people. Local Chinese authorities have imposed additional restrictions on lawyer advocacy efforts.

• The constitutional and administrative mechanisms in Chinese law that allow citizens to challenge government actions do not provide effective legal remedies, and Chinese citizens seldom use them. Chinese citizens rarely submit proposals to the National People's Congress for constitutional and legal review because the review process lacks transparency and citizens cannot compel review. Administrative court challenges to government actions have not increased since 1998. Provincial authorities report an overall decline between 2003 and 2005 in applications for administrative reconsideration, and the total numbers of such applications in major Chinese municipalities is a few hundred per year.

• Chinese law also permits citizens to petition government officials directly to redress their grievances through the xinfang ("letters and visits") system. Official news media report that Chinese citizens presented 12.7 million petitions to county-level and higher xinfang bureaus during 2005, in contrast to the 8 million total court cases handled by the Chinese judiciary during the same period. Local officials are disciplined more severely for high incidences of petitioning. Absent alternative political or legal channels to check the power of local officials and obtain redress, this punishment structure provides an incentive for Chinese citizens to take their grievances to the streets in order to force local officials to act. But this punishment structure also gives local authorities an interest in suppressing mass petitions and preventing petitioners from approaching higher authorities. A December 2005 study of the xinfang system by a U.S. NGO found that some local authorities have resorted to "rampant violence and intimidation" to abduct or detain petitioners in Beijing and force them to return home.

• The Supreme People's Court 2004-2008 court reform program imposes stronger external and internal controls that may further weaken the independence of courts and judges. The court reform program, however, also sets some positive long-term goals for judicial reform in the areas of court financing, adjudication, retrial procedures, and juvenile justice. Party efforts to address growing social unrest have resulted in new government programs to strengthen institutions that assist citizens with legal claims and disputes. Official Chinese statistics show that the number of government legal aid centers rose from 2,774 in 2003 to 3,081 in 2005. The total number of cases handled by these centers rose from about 166,000 in 2003 to an estimated 250,000 in 2005, or roughly 3 percent of all cases handled by the Chinese courts in 2005.

Access to Justice and International Human Rights Standards

Chinese citizens face formidable obstacles in seeking remedies to government actions that violate their legal rights and constitutionally protected freedoms. Party and government controls limit the independence of Chinese courts and weaken the ability of individual judges to decide cases fairly. The government restricts lawyer advocacy efforts, particularly in politically sensitive cases. Although Chinese law provides citizens with Constitutional, judicial, and administrative mechanisms to challenge official violations of their rights, these mechanisms do not provide effective legal remedies.

International human rights standards require effective remedies for official violations of citizen rights. Article 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law." Article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) requires that all parties to the ICCPR ensure that persons whose rights or freedoms are violated "have an effective remedy, notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity."¹

The Chinese Judicial System

External government and Communist Party controls continue to limit the independence of the Chinese judiciary. Party officials control the selection of top judicial personnel in all courts, including the Supreme People's Court (SPC), China's highest judicial authority. Party interests guide judicial reform efforts. SPC President Xiao Yang has linked official efforts to improve the funding and professionalization of rural Chinese courts to the core Party goals of establishing a "harmonious society" and "increasing the Party's governance capacity."² In January 2006, the Party's Political and Legislative Affairs Committee issued a circular directing courts to improve enforcement efforts "under the leadership of local Party committees," apparently in response to the Party's broader effort to address mounting social unrest.³

The SPC's 2004-2008 reform program imposes stronger external controls on courts.⁴ The program directs courts to permit officials from local procuratorates to participate in adjudication committees, the highest authorities within Chinese courts. Since the procuratorate represents the government in cases pending before the courts, this directive raises issues of judicial independence and conflict of interest.⁵ The program also directs local officials to strengthen court mechanisms for receiving criticism and recommendations from local people's congresses (LPCs). The Chinese Constitution grants the standing committees of LPCs the authority to supervise local courts,⁶ and court procedures facilitate the intervention of LPC delegates in individual cases.⁷

The SPC also announced stronger internal controls over Chinese courts that may weaken the independence of individual judges to decide cases fairly. The SPC's 2004-2008 program requires that Chinese courts implement responsibility systems for individual judges and judicial panels.⁸ These systems discipline judges for a range of errors, including reversals by a higher court for legal errors.⁹ Chen Youxi, Vice President of the Constitutional and Human Rights Committee of the All China Lawyers Association, noted that because such systems "have a direct impact on personal interests such as bonuses and benefits of those trial judges with high rates of overturned cases," trial judges "commonly resort to seeking advance guidance from higher courts before making a decision, and run to appeals courts to convince them not to overturn their verdicts."¹⁰ Such systems encourage judges to violate the principles of openness and transparency in judicial decisionmaking.¹¹ In November 2005, Chi Qiang, the president of the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, announced the abolition of his court's responsibility system, and said that his court will attempt to move toward a disciplinary system that sanctions judges for illegal behavior rather than "incorrect" outcomes.¹² The wider adoption of such innovative local reforms remains in doubt, however, given the SPC's requirement that courts implement responsibility systems.

Some local Party officials have called for a degree of judicial independence, even as they press for strengthened controls over courts.¹³ State-controlled news media announced in January that Jiangxi provincial Party officials had issued a decision pressing local Party committees to strengthen their controls over the selection of court personnel. The decision, however, also called on local Party officials to support judicial independence and guard against local protectionism. The decision warned local Party committees against organizing court personnel to participate in campaigns to enforce administrative decisions or to attract investment in the local economy.¹⁴

The SPC's 2004-2008 court reform program sets some positive long-term goals for judicial reform. The SPC announced that it will consolidate and reclaim the death penalty review power from provincial-level high courts, and will require court hearings to resolve death penalty appeals [see Section III(b)--Rights of Criminal Defendants and Suspects]. The program also proposes steps to implement other positive reforms,¹⁵ including:

• Court financing. Local governments influence courts through their control over judicial funding and appointments, and use this influence to protect local interests. The program directs court officials to explore national financing for court operations.

• Court adjudication committee system. Adjudication committees include court presidents and other administrative personnel and are the highest authorities in Chinese courts. They are often the vehicle for outside pressure to reverse individual decisions. The program directs committees to adopt more open decisionmaking procedures and to guarantee that experienced judges are able to serve on adjudication committees.

• Retrial procedures. Chinese court decisions often lack finality, as the result of extensive use of retrial procedures with vague rules and few limitations. [See Section V(b)--Rights of Criminal Suspects and Defendants--Fairness of Criminal Trials and Appeals for the impact that this has had on criminal trials.] The program directs officials to clarify the criteria, limits, jurisdiction, and procedures for granting retrial. Officials have drafted two proposed judicial interpretations that seek to address some of these questions.¹⁶

• Advisory opinion system. Lower courts often rely on advisory opinions from higher courts for specific guidance on how to decide pending cases. This system undermines judicial fairness by separating actual court decisions from trials and by making subsequent appeals (to the same entity that responded to the request for review) no more than a formality. The program directs courts to limit use of advisory opinions to general questions of law rather than determinations of fact.

• Use of official authentication conclusions and expert testimony. The program directs court officials to implement a 2005 National People's Congress decision that forbids courts from establishing for-profit authentication centers to provide expert testimony. The Ministry of Justice issued relevant implementing measures in September 2005.¹⁷

• Juvenile justice system. China currently has 2,400 juvenile tribunals.¹⁸ The program directs courts to improve their work in handling criminal, civil, and administrative cases affecting the rights of juveniles. It also provides for the establishment of experimental juvenile courts.

Access to Legal Representation

Communist Party efforts to address growing social unrest have resulted in government programs to strengthen institutions that assist citizens with legal claims and disputes. To help reduce the number of citizen protests and mass petitions, provincial and municipal Party committees have directed local officials to improve legal aid and mediation efforts.¹⁹ Minister of Justice Wu Aiying said in February that:

[We must] bring into play the professional strengths of lawyers in resolving disputes. [We must] take further steps to organize and guide lawyers, basic legal service workers, and legal aid personnel to actively participate in the work of handling mass incidents and citizen petitions involving legal issues. [We must] actively explore methods and measures that press parties to settle out-of-court and in non-litigation forums, in order to better resolve disputes and prevent them from escalating.²⁰

Central government officials also are strengthening the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) presence at the local level, particularly in western China and at the level of township governments. MOJ offices guide the work of local mediation committees, run government legal aid programs that provide pro bono legal representation to citizens who meet designated criteria, and supervise and license Chinese lawyers.²¹ In 2005, Chinese authorities set the goal of ensuring that 91 percent of Chinese townships had a MOJ office by the end of 2006.²² Chinese authorities designated 7.4 billion yuan (US$920 million) to improve housing and work conditions for township court, justice, and public security bureaus in western China from 2004 to 2008.²³ The MOJ has made the strengthening of township mediation and legal aid programs part of its effort to implement the Party's "new socialist countryside" campaign.²⁴

Chinese authorities have expanded the scope of government legal aid efforts. Official Chinese statistics show that the number of government legal aid centers rose from 2,774 in 2003 to 3,081 in 2005. The total number of cases handled by these centers rose from about 166,000 in 2003 to an estimated 250,000 in 2005, or roughly 3 percent of all cases handled by the Chinese courts in 2005.²⁵ In July 2005, the All-China Environment Federation and the State Environmental Protection Administration announced the creation of a joint legal aid program for the victims of environmental pollution.²⁶ In September 2005, the Shanghai People's Congress issued a decision clarifying the eligibility of migrant workers for legal aid in cases of labor disputes, occupational injuries, and domestic violence.²⁷ In May, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) announced that 669 of its legal staff would be permitted to acquire bar licenses and provide increased legal services to workers [see Section V(c)--Protection of Internationally Recognized Labor Rights].

At the same time that it has promoted efforts to expand legal assistance to citizens, the government also has restricted the efforts of private lawyers and human rights defenders who challenge government abuses [see Section IV--Introduction; Section V(b) --Rights of Criminal Suspects and Defendants--Access to Counsel and Right to Present a Defense]. The MOJ's "2006 Report on the Policy for Development of China's Legal Profession" emphasized its role in "guiding" the legal profession and the need for all lawyers to "serve the harmony and stability of society."²⁸ The All China Lawyers Association (ACLA) issued a guiding opinion that went into effect on March 20 and restricts the ability of lawyers to handle cases involving representative or joint litigation by 10 or more litigants, or cases involving both litigation and non-litigation efforts.²⁹ The guiding opinion further instructs law firms to assign only "politically qualified" lawyers to conduct the initial intake of these cases, and to obtain the approval of at least three law firm partners before taking them on.³⁰ Lawyers who handle mass cases must accept supervision and guidance by judicial administration departments, attempt to mitigate conflict, and propose mediation as the method for conflict resolution.³¹ Local lawyers' associations may sanction any lawyer or law firm that fails to follow these guidelines and causes a "negative impact."³²

Local Chinese authorities have imposed additional restrictions on lawyer advocacy efforts. The Henan Provincial Justice Bureau has issued an opinion that forbids lawyers from using the news media and engaging in various other activities when handling "major, sensitive, mass" cases.³³ The opinion says that lawyers in Henan province cannot "use the media to stir things up or create a negative impact on domestic or international public opinion." It prohibits lawyers and law firms from publishing commentary to affect the outcome of a case or the mood of the public, and warns them not to establish contact with foreign organizations or news media in violation of disciplinary rules. The Shenyang Municipal Justice Bureau has also issued an opinion that requires lawyers to seek instruction from the Justice Bureau before they handle "major, difficult, and sensitive" cases.³⁴

Constitutional Review

The National People's Congress (NPC) wields exclusive power to amend the Constitution and to enact and amend national laws, particularly through its Standing Committee (NPCSC). The NPC is the only governmental body with the power to interpret the Constitution and supervise its enforcement. Chinese courts do not have the power either to apply constitutional provisions in the absence of concrete implementing legislation or to strike down laws or regulations that are inconsistent with the Chinese Constitution.³⁵ In December 2005, the NPCSC enacted new procedures that require the Supreme People's Court (SPC) and the Supreme People's Procuratorate to submit judicial interpretations to the NPCSC within 30 days of promulgation.³⁶ At least one Chinese scholar has said that these new procedures represent an NPC move to rein in the SPC and to ensure that the SPC does not erode the NPC's power as China's sole legislator and interpreter of the Constitution.³⁷ The NPC supervises both the SPC, China's highest judicial authority, and the State Council, China's executive authority, but the NPC remains subject to tight Party control [see Section VII--Development of the Rule of Law and the Institutions of Democratic Governance].

Some scholars have suggested removing the power of constitutional review from the NPC and vesting it in a "dedicated judicial agency,"³⁸ but the government has ruled out establishing a specialized court to review the constitutionality of laws and administrative regulations.³⁹ Senior government and Party leaders have warned officials to guard against the promotion of "Western-style constitutional reform."⁴⁰ They also reject adopting a "Western separation of powers,"⁴¹ and insist that any restraint on the central government's power must not diminish the leadership of the Communist Party.⁴²

Under Article 90 of the Legislation Law, Chinese citizens may propose NPCSC review of whether or not a State Council regulation violates the Constitution or any national law.⁴³ The Chinese government has taken some limited steps to formalize the constitutional and legal review system. For example, the NPCSC announced in 2004 the formation of a new Legislation Review and Filing Office (LRFO) to assist its Legislative Affairs Commission in reviewing regulations that may conflict with the Constitution and national laws.⁴⁴ In December 2005, the NPCSC amended the "Working Procedures for the Filing and Review of Administrative Rules, Local Rules, Autonomous Region and Special Purpose Regulations, and Special Economic Zone Rules" (Legislation Procedures).⁴⁵ The Legislation Procedures stipulate three phases for constitutional and legal review: consultation between the NPCSC and the formulating agency; NPCSC submission of a written request to the formulating agency that it revise or rescind the legislation; and, if the formulating agency does not accept the request, consultation within the NPCSC to determine whether or not to rescind the legislation. The amendments include a new provision authorizing the special committees of the NPC to review laws and regulations on their own initiative, with a deadline of two months for formulating agencies to respond to NPCSC special committee requests that a regulation be revised or rescinded.

Chinese citizens rarely submit proposals to the NPCSC for constitutional and legal review because the review process lacks transparency and citizens cannot compel review.⁴⁶ During the run-up to the annual plenary sessions of the NPC and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Chinese authorities shut down the Aegean Sea (Aiqinhai) Web site, as well as four other sites that had complained on behalf of local workers.⁴⁷ The Web site operators sought relief through the constitutional and legal review system in April 2006.⁴⁸ As of September 2006, the NPCSC had not yet responded to the request for review. To address these problems, some Chinese legal experts have called for requiring the LRFO to notify those seeking review whether or not it will accept their proposal, and to provide explanations to those whose proposals it rejects.⁴⁹ Others have suggested that the NPCSC report each year to the full NPC, describing the previous year's constitutional review work.⁵⁰ Some legal experts in China also have advocated that the NPCSC establish a dedicated Constitutional Commission staffed by scholars, judges, and lawyers.⁵¹

NPC special committees and other central government agencies have the power to compel the NPCSC to act on their applications,⁵² but they have an interest in maintaining the national status quo and not creating conflicts among themselves.⁵³ Thus, they have little incentive to request review of national laws, State Council regulations, or other central government agencies' rules on major issues relating to civil or human rights.⁵⁴ Citizens may only offer proposals to the LRFO, which stands between them and the NPCSC and lacks the power to issue binding decisions that would resolve disputes.⁵⁵ In addition, unlike other laws that compel State Council departments, courts, and local governments to act on citizens' applications and lawsuits,⁵⁶ the Legislation Law merely provides that the NPCSC may react to citizens' proposals "if necessary." Finally, the government is not required to inform citizens whether or not it will act on a proposal, and the 2005 amendments to the Legislation Procedures revised the provision concerning government notification to a citizen that a review is complete, making such notification voluntary.⁵⁷

The NPCSC has enacted and amended laws and regulations that protect citizens from government abuses in response to public pressure⁵⁸ and new legislative mandates,⁵⁹ but it has never rescinded a law or administrative regulation in direct response to a citizen proposal.⁶⁰ The primary purpose of the constitutional and legal review system is to safeguard the unity of China's legal system rather than to give citizens an effective remedy by a competent national tribunal.⁶¹ The system is based on the constitutional and legal presumption that the NPC and its Standing Committee are paramount,⁶² and therefore not subject to checks, balances, or oversight.⁶³ The China Law Society's Democracy and Law Times summarized the situation as follows:

As a system, constitutional review comprises proposal, acceptance, review, determination, and resolution. If it lacks any one of these, then the constitutional review system is not complete. Although the meaning of citizens having been granted the right to submit proposals for constitutional review is very important, if all they have is the right of proposal, and do not have the right of acceptance, review, determination, and resolution, then the right of proposal exists in name only. This also explains the reason why so few citizens propose constitutional review.⁶⁴

Judicial and Administrative Review of State Action

Chinese law provides methods for citizens to seek a remedy when they believe the government has violated their rights. These methods allow Chinese citizens limited legal recourse against individual officials or local governments that exceed their authority.⁶⁵ Under the Administrative Reconsideration Law (ARL), Chinese citizens may submit an application to State Council departments for administrative review of specific government actions that violate their legal rights and interests.⁶⁶ Under the Administrative Procedure Law (APL), citizens may file a lawsuit in a people's court to challenge government actions.⁶⁷ Under the State Compensation Law, citizens may request compensation for illegal government acts along with an ARL or APL action, or present them directly to the relevant government bureau.⁶⁸ Some local Party disciplinary committees are also experimenting with procedural changes that grant cadres in specific cases the ability to mount a defense, present evidence, and receive a hearing on the charges against them.⁶⁹

These methods, however, do not allow Chinese citizens to challenge administrative regulations that violate constitutional or legal rights. Article 12 of the APL forbids courts from accepting citizen challenges of administrative rules and regulations that have "general binding force." Article 7 of the ARL allows citizens to apply to administrative agencies for review of the legality of decrees⁷⁰ of State Council departments and local people's governments at or above the county level, and any provisions enacted by town or township people's governments.⁷¹ The ARL does not, however, allow reconsideration of State Council rules or regulations.⁷²

Citizens are making only limited use of laws that protect their rights by granting judicial and administrative review of government actions. For example, Hubei provincial authorities report an overall decline between 2003 and 2005 in applications for administrative reconsideration, from 3,468 to 3,336.⁷³ Total numbers of such applications in major Chinese municipalities is a few hundred per year.⁷⁴ Administrative court challenges to government actions have not increased since 1998. In 2005, first-instance administrative law cases totaled 95,707, nearly twice the 52,596 reported in 1995, but a decline from the 101,921 recorded in 2001. This decline parallels a similar stagnation in citizens using the judiciary generally. In 2005, the Chinese judiciary handled 4.3 million first-instance civil cases, down from 4.73 million reported in 2001, and only slightly higher than the 4 million recorded in 1995.⁷⁵

Chinese laws that grant judicial and administrative action to citizens to protect their rights do not provide mechanisms to compel effective judicial or government review. When the government shut down the Aegean Sea Web site, along with four other Web sites, in March 2006, authorities cited Article 5 of the Provisions on the Administration of Internet News Information Services (Provisions),⁷⁶ which grant the State Council Information Office (SCIO) the authority to license Web sites that report and comment on politics, economics, fast-breaking social events, and military, foreign, social, and public affairs. The operators of the closed Web sites believed that the Provisions violated their constitutional and legal rights,⁷⁷ but they had no way to compel judicial or other government review of the Provisions. Government authorities were acting under the authority of the Provisions when they shut down the Web sites, and so the issue was whether the Provisions violated the Constitution, a national law, or a State Council regulation. Administrative review under the ARL could not provide the Web site operators an effective remedy because the Provisions are "department rules," and a 2005 State Council decision (Decision) explicitly provides for the licensing authority granted to the SCIO.⁷⁸ Because citizens may not use the administrative reconsideration system to question the constitutionality or legality of State Council regulations (such as the Decision) or State Council department rules (such as the Provisions), the Web site operators would be unlikely to obtain effective relief based on an application for administrative reconsideration attacking the Provisions directly.

The ARL provides that citizens who do not accept an administrative reconsideration decision may file a lawsuit with a people's court under the APL.⁷⁹ Like the ARL, however, the APL explicitly prohibits constitutional or legal review of State Council departments' rules.⁸⁰ A court could refuse to enforce the Provisions if they conflicted with a national law or a State Council regulation,⁸¹ but since the SCIO's licensing authority is derived from the Decision, a court would lack the authority to declare the Provisions unconstitutional or illegal.⁸²

Citizen Petitioning

Since the 1950s, xinfang ("letters and visits") offices have provided a channel outside court challenges for citizens to appeal government decisions and present their grievances.⁸³ Under the new national Regulations on Letters and Visits (RLV) issued in January 2005, citizens may "give information, make comments or suggestions, or lodge complaints" to xinfang bureaus of local governments and their departments.⁸⁴ Individual petitioning may be as simple as one dissatisfied citizen visiting multiple xinfang bureaus within government agencies. Collective or mass petitioning may involve organized demonstrations, speeches, or marches of hundreds or thousands of people seeking to present their grievances, despite an official prohibition on such activities.⁸⁵ Official news media report that Chinese citizens presented 12.7 million petitions to county-level and higher xinfang bureaus during 2005,⁸⁶ in contrast to the 8 million total court cases handled by the Chinese judiciary during the same period.⁸⁷ The total number of petitions increased each year from 1993 to 2004.⁸⁸ Petitioning is common even within the judiciary. Chinese courts handled four million petitions in 2005, a number roughly equal to the total number of civil court cases for the year.⁸⁹

Authorities launched an implementation campaign for the RLV in 2005 aimed at reducing the number of citizen petitions. The government tasked the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) with coordinating official responses to citizen petitions, required local MPS heads to meet personally with petitioners in a May-to-September campaign, and increased propaganda efforts pressing local officials to resolve citizen petitions.⁹⁰ Chinese authorities have ordered the nationwide adoption of responsibility systems that discipline local officials who fail to prevent mass petitions.⁹¹ Concerned about the rising number of mass petitions, central Party officials have set a goal to decrease the number during 2006.⁹² Party and government officials have called for strengthening xinfang institutions in conjunction with stronger efforts to maintain social order.⁹³

Chinese authorities and state-run news media report that official measures to address citizen petitions in 2005 were a major policy success,⁹⁴ but official statistics provide conflicting support for this claim. Official statistics show total citizen petitions declined for the first time in 12 years, from 13.7 million in 2004 to 12.7 million in 2005.⁹⁵ Although officials reported a 90 percent success rate in resolving petitions,⁹⁶ scholars commissioned by the government to study the issue say that only 0.2 percent of petitions filed receive a response.⁹⁷ Official news media report that government and Party xinfang bureaus at the county level and above have handled some 917,000 petitions since the beginning of the campaign, but this represents less than a tenth of the total number of petitions received in 2005 by xinfang bureaus. Since MPS rules issued in August 2005 provide for disciplining local MPS officials who fail to prevent collective petitions, MPS officials may be suppressing petitioners or misreporting their numbers rather than resolving the underlying problems.⁹⁸

The 2005 RLV requires local governments to adopt official xinfang responsibility systems, and some local governments have done so.⁹⁹ These systems punish local officials more harshly for mass petitions that reach higher-level authorities, depending on the numbers of petitioners involved and the level of government that they reach.¹⁰⁰ Absent alternative political or legal channels to check the power of local officials and obtain redress, this punishment structure provides an incentive for Chinese citizens to take their grievances to the streets in order to force local officials to act.¹⁰¹ But this punishment structure also gives local authorities an interest in suppressing mass petitions and preventing petitioners from approaching higher authorities. A December 2005 NGO study of these systems found that some local authorities have resorted to "rampant violence and intimidation" to abduct or detain petitioners in Beijing and force them to return home.¹⁰² The report alleges that Beijing police often ignore such abductions or detentions and sometimes assist with abductions.¹⁰³

The government uses harsh measures to repress petitioners during high-profile national events. In March 2006, a senior MPS official confirmed that MPS officials would engage in mass roundups to "strongly encourage" those "people without proper professions, fixed places of residence, or stable incomes who have been hanging around Beijing for a long time" to leave the capital before the annual plenary session of the National People's Congress (NPC).¹⁰⁴ Other repressive measures include:

• During the annual NPC plenary session in March 2006, authorities detained AIDS activist Hu Jia for 41 days without legal formalities and without notifying his family [see Section V(b)--Rights of Criminal Suspects and Defendants--Arbitrary Detention]. Hu had attempted to submit petitions on behalf of AIDS victims to central government officials during high-profile conferences [see Section V(g)--Public Health--HIV/AIDS].

• In December 2005, Beijing police arrested several hundred petitioners who gathered outside the offices of China Central Television to present their grievances on "Popularize Law Day."

• In December 2005, Shanghai police arrested over 200 petitioners who sought to present their grievances to municipal Party officials and were gathered outside a building in which the local Party branch was holding a conference.

• In November 2005, police in a number of cities arrested or detained dozens of petitioners before an official visit by U.S. President George W. Bush.¹⁰⁵

Chinese court officials are pursuing reforms to the process of handling citizen petitions that may weaken the ability of individual judges to decide cases according to law. The Supreme People's Court (SPC) announced in November 2005 that it will require Chinese courts to establish procedures to resolve citizen petitions about judicial decisions. Trial judges will be responsible for responding to parties who visit the court and raise complaints about judgments, and their record for handling such complaints will be made part of their performance reviews.¹⁰⁶ Similarities between the SPC announcement and the RLV suggest that the central government seeks to implement a common set of reforms for addressing citizen petitions to both the courts and local governments.¹⁰⁷ The SPC reforms may encourage Chinese litigants to resort to post-decision petitioning rather than appeals to reverse verdicts, increase pressure on Chinese trial judges to alter verdicts to satisfy persistent petitioners, and weaken the finality of judgments.¹⁰⁸

[T]he general consensus with our country's constitutional community is that the National People's Congress Standing Committee should establish a dedicated Constitutional Commission, with rank at least equal to that of the NPC's specialist commission, and appoint authoritative legal scholars, experienced judges, and experienced lawyers to the specialist committee to serve as review commissioners. It would then directly review whether laws and regulations were unconstitutional or illegal, and report directly to the NPC Standing Committee, after which review procedures would be launched, and this method is relatively more suited to our country's situation.