End of forced labour hailed, but some fear it may return in another form

Legal experts and rights groups welcomed reports this week about ending re-education through labour, but are concerned that another unjust punishment system will take its place as long as stability remains the Communist Party's overarching priority.

In particular, legal scholars noted security tsar Meng Jianzhu's choice of the word "halt" - instead of abolish - when describing Beijing's plans for the half-century-old laojiao system, which allows the police to send people to forced labour camps for up to four years without trial.

Some feared the system might stay on the books or continue in an altered form.

Professor Fu Hualing, of the University of Hong Kong cautioned against being overly optimistic because, to the government, maintaining social stability "is still the priority that will override legal reform".

The laojiao system has evolved from a system to purge "counter-revolutionaries" and "class enemies" in the 1950s to a convenient way to punish today's petty criminals, cult members and government critics.

A 2009 UN Human Rights Council report estimated that 190,000 inmates were locked up in 320 re-education-through-labour centres across the country.

Ira Belkin, executive director the US-Asia Law Institute at New York University School of Law, said he expected that the laojiao system, if abolished, would be replaced by a new, shorter form of detention with more robust procedural protections.