Access to Justice
Activist Jailed in China Seeks Medical Aid By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: December 14, 2004 Filed at 5:47 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Boston-based democracy activist jailed in China is seeking a medical parole because of a stroke he suffered earlier this year, his wife says. Yang Jianli, who has served more than half of a five-year prison term on charges of espionage and illegal entry, was hospitalized for the stroke earlier in the summer and continues to feel numbness on the left side of his body, his wife, Christina Fu, said Tuesday. Advertisement Fu learned details of her husband's condition after his brother and sister-in-law were allowed to visit him at the Beijing prison Tuesday. ``It's a big relief that his condition is not life-threatening right now,'' said Fu, who still lives in the Boston area with their two children. ``But I would really rather see him coming home.'' In a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell sent Tuesday, Fu's lawyer, Jared Genser, asked the U.S.
According to a Kyodo News Service report, on December 4, a group of approximately 500 petitioners gathered outside the main office of state-run China Central Television and protested government bias in the media.
Hong Kong media sources suggest the size of the crowd may have run into the thousands, and indicate that it was forcibly dispersed by the police shortly after beginning. Because of tight government control, organized protests of this size in Beijing are relatively rare. No coverage of the incident in mainland Chinese media has been observed.
According to a November 18 article in the China Youth Daily, plaintiffs achieved success in 21.37% of administrative cases filed against government departments in the first nine months of 2004. The article implies that the plaintiff success rate should be higher, noting that most citizens are very cautious about suing officials and that administrative departments use their power to resist the law and harass the courts. It also highlights the efforts of Daming county, Hebei, which reportedly had a plaintiff success rate of over 80% during the same period. Daming courts have apparently instituted expedited filing, notice, and hearing procedures to reduce the amount of time that government department have to interfere with the court before administrative cases are accepted and processed.
Several media outlets in China have reported the conclusion of court proceedings in the defamation suit against the China Youth Daily filed by a judge imprisoned for corruption.
In August 2001, the China Youth Daily published an article entitled "Uncovering Yong Bao's Umbrella: a Godfather, a Godmother, and a Mistress," claiming that three government officials were acting to protect mafia boss Yong Bao. The article labeled one of the three, Jiao Meigui, an Intermediate Court judge in Luoyang, as his "mistress."
Li Fei, Vice Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, confirmed in a statement on December 1 that citizens may petition for legislative review of laws and regulations that they believe conflict with the PRC Constitution. Li’s comments, the subject of articles in the Beijing News and other domestic papers, were reportedly made in response to a posting on the People’s Daily Web site that raised questions about China’s constitutional review process. Li noted that the NPC Standing Committee has established a special office to handle citizen petitions. He also suggested that a constitutional court is not appropriate for China because China’s government does not apply a concept of separation of powers.
According to reports in both the Beijing News and the South China Morning Post, Chinese central authorities have established a joint conference mechanism to handle the increasing number of citizen petitions to the central government.
On November 1, the People’s Daily reported on a Sino-U.S. defense lawyer training conference held in Guangzhou. The conference, jointly sponsored by New York University Law School and China Lawyer Magazine, was reportedly attended by more than 100 Chinese lawyers and included a mock U.S. criminal trial staged by American judges, prosecutors, law professors, and criminal defense experts. The conference was the third in a series of criminal defense training conferences also held in Shanghai and Xi’an. Organizers reported a positive response from the Chinese audience in all three cities.
According to an article in the Beijing News, the Anhui provincial government has begun to require that the provincial Legal Affairs office review a range of government directives before they are promulgated. Individual ministries or administrative bodies issue these directives, which are called "red-hatted documents" (hongtou wenjian), about general policy implementation issues. These documents raise two sets of problems. First, the Administrative Litigation Law only permits citizens to challenge the legality of “concrete administrative acts,” or administrative decisions that affect them individually. They cannot challenge the legality of government regulations or policies themselves. Thus, citizens cannot challenge the general policy directives, even thought these directives often affect their rights.
A November 18 article in the China Youth Daily, citing criminal law expert Chen Renhua, reports that the Supreme People’s Court has already decided to take back the power of death penalty review in all cases and is now discussing how establish special review panels to examine the cases. Although the PRC Criminal Procedure Law and Criminal Law state that the SPC shall review all death sentences, in the 1980s, the SPC delegated this power to provincial high people’s courts for cases involving murder, rape, and several other crimes.