Security tsar Meng Jianzhu criticises interference in court proceedings

Security tsar Meng Jianzhu has criticised excessive interference by officials in court proceedings - a practice so rampant that judges frequently receive notes at the bench telling them how to rule.

Meng, the newly appointed secretary of the Central Politics and Legal Affairs Committee, attacked the "passing of paper slips" at a video conference with top law-and-order officials on Monday, sources said.

Such notes are usually passed by members of lower-level politics and legal affairs committees based in the courts.

"Meng criticised the old system in which the party's committee always gives concrete instructions to the courts to tell them how to rule on individual cases," said one participant who declined to be named.

The source had often witnessed committee members passing notes to judges.

The remarks, in which Meng also announced an eventual end to the "re-education through forced labour" system, were not reported by state media.