Without freedom for rights lawyers, how can China lay claim to a just legal system?

Nicholas Bequelin says President Xi Jinping’s legal reform drive is being undercut by the crackdown on lawyers and bureaucratic interpretations of national security laws

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Protesters march to the central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong to mark the first anniversary of the mass arrest of human rights lawyers on the mainland, last July 9. Photo: Dickson Lee

Published: 4:45pm, 23 Jan 2017Updated: 3:19am, 24 Jan 2017

Does China need lawyers? It’s a fair question – since July 2015, we have documented over 240 cases of lawyers, legal activists and human rights defenders being detained, questioned, harassed or sentenced, as part of the largest state crackdown on the legal profession in China in decades.

Many endured months of secret detention under a legal provision that allows police to hold state security suspects at a place of their choice, outside the formal detention system. Several were tortured and almost all were denied contact with lawyers or relatives. Some issued chilling public “confessions”. Four have already been convicted and two jailed. Five more await trial.

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This doesn’t fit easily with President Xi Jinping’s ( 習近平 ) insistence on vigorously developing the legal system in China as the main instrument for the government and the party to rule the country.

Xi took office with the bold promise to “put power in a cage”, or deter official abuse of power, and followed through by giving fallen political rival Bo Xilai (薄熙來) the closest thing to a transparent trial by China’s standards, abolishing the notorious system of re-education through labour, and picking “the rule of law” as the theme of the fourth party plenum in 2014.

Former Chongqing strongman and fallen political star Bo Xilai awaits sentencing at the Jinan Intermediate People’s Court on September 22, 2013. He was found guilty of corruption, bribery and abuse of power, and sentenced to life in prison. Photo: AFP

Communist Party pledges greater role for constitution, rights in fourth plenum

China has since put in motion an ambitious plan to address admitted deficiencies in its judicial system: corruption, abuse of power, political interference, miscarriage of justice, forced confessions and torture.

Without lawyers, ordinary citizens have virtually no hope of claiming their rights against powerful state machinery

But at least two things are threatening this agenda. The first is the failure to recognise that rights granted on paper are effective only if redress is available when they are denied or violated. Without effective remedies, rights on paper are worthless, and lawyers are indispensable to securing these remedies.

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