Access to Justice

According to a Legal Daily report, Liaoning province has issued a new regulation on meetings between lawyers and criminal suspects. With exceptions for cases involving state secrets or organized crime, the regulation requires law enforcement agencies to respond in writing and arrange a meeting between a lawyer and a suspect within 48 hours of receiving a request for such a meeting. When a case involves organized crime, the agencies have five days to respond and make arrangements. In the case of a crime involving state secrets, the law enforcement agency must approve or reject the request within a five-day period (but need not necessarily arrange a meeting). The text of the provincial regulation is available here.

According to an article published in the South China Morning Post (11/16), Ministry of Land and Resources officials acknowledge that farmers are owed 15 billion yuan in unpaid compensation for land requisitions. A State Council circular issued in late October introduces new requirements designed to force local governments to address the issue of unpaid compensation (see related story here).

In recent weeks, China has been hit by a series of large-scale riots and demonstrations in different regions. According to various reports:

In a compelling article (in English), the China Internet Information Center (a Web site run by the Chinese government) describes the absurd number of obstacles that a group of seven farmers faced in challenging the compensation paid to them when they were evicted from their farms to make way for urban construction.

As of November 1, the Chinese government lifted a ban on the sale of arable land that was imposed in April as part of an effort to cool China’s overheated economy and address abuses related to land seizures (see posting on 10/26). In place of the ban, the State Council issued a new circular on land management in an effort to clamp down on unlawful land requisitions and prevent a flood of new problems and social unrest. An analysis posted in Caijing notes that the circular is not a “fundamental solution,” but a “makeshift step” designed to ameliorate a series of problems until amendments to China’s land management law and related regulations are passed.

According to reports in the Taipei Times, the Hong Kong Tai Yang Pao, the Singapore Straits Times, and other media, Hanyuan county, Sichuan has been hit by several rounds of massive demonstrations over forced relocations since mid-October. Hanyuan county is the site of a large hydroelectric project that has displaced more than 100,000 peasants. Beginning in late October, tens of thousands of peasants reportedly marched on the construction site and government buildings in Hanyuan and clashed with police in a protest over the relocations and inadequate compensation.

Two recent articles in Southern Weekend (1, 2) analyzed the Chinese xinfang (letters and visits) system. In addition, a recent Washington Post article provides English-language analysis. For more on the xinfang system, see the Access to Justice section of the CECC Annual Report.

A Beijing News article announced the founding of the All China Lawyers Association Constitutional and Human Rights Committee, with Wu Ge to serve as the first director. At the opening cermony of the new center, Wang Jianmin, director (along with Wu Ge) of an analagous Qinghua University program, called for the reform or elimination of those Chinese laws or regulations inconsistent with human rights standards.