Criminal Justice

The Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao published a series of articles on May 18 that highlight the Chinese government's repression of lawyers who engage in criminal and civil rights defense. An article entitled Rights Defense Lawyers Are Bound and Gagged; New Industry Regulations Restrict the Acceptance of Requisitioning and Eviction Cases criticizes the new guiding opinion from the All China Lawyers Association, which restricts lawyer involvement in "mass" cases.

The Ministry of Public Security (MPS) announced on May 16 that it will promote audio and video taping of police interrogations in homicide and triad-related cases, according to a Xinhua report dated the same day. The report notes that public security bureaus in economically developed areas such as Shanghai and Beijing municipalities, as well as Zhejiang, Guangdong, and Jiangsu provinces, have already adopted such measures. Despite supporting these local experiments, the MPS announced no formal plans for nationwide implementation. Instead, He Ting, Director of the MPS Criminal Investigation Department, maintained that it is "still premature for police departments across the country to implement such measures because of the gap in economic development and lack of police in the remote western areas."

The Shaanxi High People's Court (HPC) announced March 27 in an Opinion on Implementing the Second Five Year Reform Program for the People's Courts (Opinion) that it would "gradually eliminate" the use of advisory opinions (qingshi) in individual cases. The Second Five Year Reform Program for the People's Courts, issued by the Supreme People's Court in 2005, identifies reform of advisory opinions as one of its long-term court reform goals. Chinese judges often seek internal advisory opinions from higher courts or court adjudication committees (the highest authority in a given court) about how to decide pending cases.

Manfred Nowak, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, concluded his two-week visit to China and confirmed allegations that "the practice of torture, though on the decline - particularly in urban areas - remains widespread in China," according to a December 2 press release available through the Web site of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The National People's Congress Standing Committee (NPCSC) passed a new Public Security Administration Punishment Law on August 28, according to an article on the People's Daily Web site. "Public order" offenses are a category of violations that includes traffic offenses, public disturbances, prostitution, drug use, and other "minor crimes" that the Chinese government punishes with administrative penalties, including fines and administrative detention, rather than criminal sentences. Such administrative punishments are controversial because police issue them without effective judicial review or even the minimal procedural protections that the Criminal Procedure Law provides to criminal defendants.

Bai Jingfu, Assistant Party Secretary of China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS), urged the nation's public security agencies to "strike hard" against rising social unrest, according to January 26 articles by the China News Agency (in Chinese, via Xinhua) and Reuters. The MPS Communist Party Committee concluded at a January 25 meeting that China will continue to face internal conflicts, high crime rates, and struggles against unnamed "enemies" for a long time to come. It also emphasized that public security agencies should keep close watch and "strike hard" when dealing with terrorist activity, in order to safeguard national security and social stability.

Jude Shao, a California businessman and naturalized U.S. citizen, will become eligible for parole on May 8, 2006, after having served half of a 16-year prison sentence. On April 6, 1998, Shao was placed under house arrest in Shanghai, and on May 8, 1998, the local procuratorate approved his formal arrest for falsely issuing value added tax receipts and for tax evasion. Shao was indicted on May 29, 1999, and tried in mid-June. According to various reports, his attorney was neither permitted to meet with him nor to review the evidence against him before trial. In March 2000, the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court convicted Shao and sentenced him to 16 years in prison. His appeal was denied on June 6, 2000. Shao maintains that he paid all taxes and that he was unjustly prosecuted for his refusal to pay bribes to local officials. He has repeatedly petitioned the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) for a retrial based on new exculpatory evidence.

Beijing public security officials convened an April 12 meeting to provide information and statistics about the municipality's implementation of the new Public Security Administration Punishment Law, according to an April 13 Legal Evening News report (in Chinese, via the People's Procuratorate Daily). During the month after the law went into effect on March 1, Beijing police filed over 35,000 cases, leading to investigations of over 40,000 individuals, warnings or fines for more than 16,000, and administrative detention for more than 7,000.