Legal reforms in China

A Chinese policeman guides traffic
The Danish Institute for Human Rights has been working in China since 1999. During this period, several central laws have been revised granting the majority of the Chinese significantly more rights when they face the judicial system.

In China, our most important area of focus is working for law reforms – to the benefit of ordinary Chinese. We do so by cooperating with Chinese partners and by giving advice on law proposals containing human rights progress. When the Chinese government decides to amend a law, it turns to different Chinese legal experts, think tanks and universities and asks them to contribute with opinions and suggestions – we have contributed to those processes through our years of cooperation with Chinese partner institutions.

- Obviously, we cannot come from Denmark telling the Chinese to do this and that. But 15 years of cooperation has built a lot of trust in us from our Chinese partners. This enables us to suggest adjustments to law proposals which are taken seriously. Everything does not turn out as we could hope for, but we have been able to put some fingerprints on new legislation together with our Chinese partners over the years, explains Bjarne Andreasen, head of the institute’s China programme.

Revised law prohibits torture
The Danish Institute for Human Rights is cooperating with Chinese universities, think tanks, prosecutors and defence attorneys among others striving to strengthen rule of law in China.

Some of these fingerprints are found in the Chinese Criminal Procedure Law that was revised in 2013. The law defines the framework for the trial procedure and police investigation.

The new law marks the first prohibition of torture in Chinese law. At the same time, judges are required to reject evidence obtained through illegal means such as torture. Likewise, defence attorneys have been granted better access to suspects and evidence. The law also furthers the possibilities for the defence to bring forward its own evidence and challenge the evidence put forward by the procuracy, for instance through calling its own witnesses and cross examining the prosecutor’s witnesses. Until 2013, the common practice was that the prosecutor would read written testimonies in effect preventing cross-examination.

The suspects themselves have also gained better rights. They have been granted the right to know what they are suspected of, having their relatives informed and the right not to incriminate themselves. They are, however, still obligated to answer the police’s questions.

The revised law furthermore grants juvenile offenders below 18 years of age conditional non-prosecution for misdemeanour offences if they are not reoffenders. In order to ensure their future possibilities for education and work, the criminal records are to be sealed by authorities.

All of these measures are taken for granted many places all over the world, but until 2013 they were not to be found in Chinese law.

Much fewer executions
Even though China every year executes more people than the rest of the world together the situation is gradually changing for the better. During the last ten years, executed death sentences are estimated to have dropped by 50 percent. It is not possible to give an exact number, as the official data is secret, but even conservative estimates acknowledge a significant drop in executions.

The drop is, among other things, a consequence of reforms where The Danish Institute for Human Rights and partners played a role in raising the issue. In 2007 it was decided by law that the Chinese Supreme Court must affirm all death sentences. Until then, death sentences were dealt with locally and Beijing could not oversee that the courts were not being misused in local vendettas and power struggles.

Furthermore, the number of offences which can lead to capital punishment have been reduced – the latest reduction coming with the revision of the penal code in 2012.

All of these improvements are obviously not exclusively due to the work of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and its Chinese cooperation partners. There is a wish within the Chinese government to improve the rule of law for ordinary Chinese and thereby legitimise the regime. However, the Chinese leadership only initiate legal reforms according to its own priorities. But the Chinese leadership is made up by both reformers and more conservative groups – we aim to help the reformers succeed.

Continuing education for lawyers
These reforms show that the Chinese leadership is occupied with making the people experience a country respecting the rule of law and in many of cases, Chinese law is quite good. For the most part, it is the enforcement that is lacking. It a momentous task to expand the rule of law all over the gigantic country and all its police forces, prosecutors, judges and civil servants.

It takes quite some time before a decision made in Beijing, furthering defence attorneys access to clients and evidence of the prosecutor, becomes integrated in everyday practice across all of China.

Therefore, the Danish Institute for Human Rights are engaged in supporting our Chinese partners work disseminating the letter of the law throughout the country.

- Among other things, we support the continuing education of defence attorneys, ensuring they know their and their clients’ rights. We do so through web based courses with up to 600 defence lawyers from all of China attending each session, Bjarne Andreasen explains.

Massive problems still evident
The fact that Chinese law is moving in the right direction in certain areas should not overshadow that the human rights situation in China is far from perfect.

In the revised Criminal Procedure Law small groups of Chinese actually had their rights reduced, especially dissidents, democracy- and human rights advocates.

A new article in the law legalises an until now illegal procedure where suspects of particular serious cases of corruption, terrorism or crimes endangering state security can be detained outside the regular penitentiary system and without judicial review. It is unclear what constitutes crimes endangering state security and the label is often used against Tibetan and Uighur dissidents and other political dissidents, democracy- and human rights advocates.

Warranted by the new law, these groups are now at risk being detained for up to six months in secret places outside the regular detention centres, isolated from the outside and without judicial review. These detentions are not only in violation of the suspect’s rights, who is left to the mercy of his or hers guards, but they are also violating the rights of relatives, who have no way of knowing where the suspect is being held and on what grounds.

The Danish Institute for Human Rights is working in China, only after lengthy and thorough consideration. We are careful not to be misused to rubber stamp human rights violations in the country. We would discontinue our engagement in China if this was the case and if we could not achieve real results.

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs funds the work of the Danish Institute for Human Rights in China.