Access to Justice

The Supreme People's Court (SPC) recently issued a broad judicial interpretation of the legal rights of contractors and subcontractors, in part expanding the ability of workers to sue to collect unpaid back wages.

Unpaid back wages in China's booming construction industry have been the source of significant labor protests. As noted in a Xinhua report carried earlier this year, developers and contractors often employ a complex network of contracts and subcontracts to avoid legal responsibility for paying workers wages.

In “What it Means to be a Lawyer,” Guo Yukuan of “Southern Window” news magazine recently interviewed Zhang Sizhi, one of China’s most famous lawyers. Zhang’s career spans China's developing legal system, from his stint as a lawyer for the “Gang of Four,” to his recent representation of the Shanghai activist lawyer Zheng Enchong.

When Deng Xiaoping’s policy of reform and opening was first put in place in the late 1970’s, many wondered whether or not it would be possible to rebuild the legal system, which had been thoroughly dismantled during the Cultural Revolution. At the time, China’s few lawyers were government employees who took orders from an administrative hierarchy as part of the state apparatus of social control. The notion of a legal profession that would be in any way autonomous had no place in Deng’s “socialist legality.”

Chinese media report that 300 legal procedure experts met in Guangzhou last weekend to discuss a “major revision” of the Criminal Procedure Law as well as significant amendments to the Civil Procedure Law and the Administrative Litigation Law. The experts, who included both scholars and officials, gathered in Guangzhou for the 2004 annual meeting of the Chinese Law Society.

In this statement, Xiao Yang, Chief Justice of the Supreme People’s Court, interprets the Fourth Plenum’s recent “Decision on Strengthening the Party’s Governing Capacity” for application to the judiciary. Xiao Yang urges the courts to press ahead on judicial reform to enable them to achieve independence according to law. He calls on the courts to perfect court procedures, including the open trial system, the system of people’s assessors (Xiao Yang calls this “judicial democracy”) and the enforcement of judgments. Finally he sums up the necessary reform as a way to raise the judiciary’s authority and, as a result, the Party’s authority.

The Knight-Ridder news service has published an article on what it describes as a "new breed of civil activist." The article profiles, among others, Li Jian. According to the article, Li set up a Web site in late 2003 that he called "Citizens' Rights." Authorities took the Web site down on August 25, 2004. Knight-Ridder cited Li's lawyer as saying that, although Li was not charged with a crime, "the police understand that Mr. Li can only play a role through his Web site. They don't need to detain him. They just close the Web site."

In a front-page article on October 5, the Washington Post reported on the growth of unrest in rural China stemming from illegal and abusive land seizures. According to the article, the Ministry of Land and Resources disciplined officials involved in more than 168,000 illegal land deals last year, and Chinese scholars are warning of “turbulence” if the government does not control the problem. In a recent interview with Southern Weekend, rural development specialist Yu Jianrong of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences echoed such concerns, noting that property rights infringements have replaced high tax burdens as the primary focus of peasant activism.

According to an article appearing on the China Court Website, a local court in Xintai city, Shandong province is implementing "financial responsibility" measures aimed at creating incentives for judicial performance. More information is available on the Xintai government website.

Under the financial responsibility measures, which came into effect on January 1, 2004, individual judges make theoretically voluntary salary contributions to a designated account, to which the court will make additional contributions based on the judge's work performance. As judges' careers progress, they may be able to withdraw some of the funds, or may be docked given amounts, based on continuing evaluations of their work performance. Upon retirement, they may receive the remaining amount.

In an interview with Southern Weekend (translated here by Manfred Elfstrom), Yu Jianrong, the noted Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar and author of a recent book on the dynamics of rural China, states that illegal confiscation of land by local officials and related abuses have become the most serious threats to peasant rights, and that property rights have displaced tax burdens as the principal focus of peasant protest. Yu traces the sharp rise in the number of land petitions and protests in the last two years in part to China's rapid urbanization and in part to the focus of China's new leaders on governing "for the people," which he claims has created an environment in which peasants are more comfortable raising their grievances. He notes that over 66 million peasants have lost their land over the past 13 years.