Source:
https://scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1360264/plenum-pledge-wont-make-scrapping-chinas-labour-camps-any
Comment/ Opinion

Plenum pledge won't make scrapping China's labour camps any easier

Jerome A. Cohen and Margaret K. Lewis say without recourse to constitutional backing, the move to truly abolish re-education through labour faces the same hurdles as in past reform efforts

Last week's decisions of the Communist Party's Central Committee promise significant changes to many aspects of China's legal system. None may be more important and immediate than its announcement that the party is terminating "re-education through labour", the notorious administrative punishment to which the police alone can sentence anyone for as much as three years of detention in a labour camp, with a possible one-year extension. Police don't need the approval of any court or even the agreement of the prosecutor's office.

Is re-education through labour, which has been a mainstay of China's dictatorial power since 1957 and often attacked by law reformers, really to be abolished in substance as well as name?