Human Rights in the Chinese Administration of Justice
China Human Rights Report 2018, Taipei: Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (2019), pp. 83-112
30 Pages Posted: 3 Oct 2019 Last revised: 10 Feb 2020
Date Written: September 24, 2019
Abstract
In recent years, China has instituted a series of legal reforms that may be conducive to elevating the professional skills of actors in the judicial system, but the reforms fail to address chronic human rights violations in the Chinese administration of justice. This article discusses the institutional problems that pose challenges to the protection of human rights in this respect and focuses on notable cases and trends that occurred during 2018 as an illustration of ongoing human rights problems in China’s justice system. These developments can be summarized as the following: First, public security agencies continue to wield unchecked powers of arbitrary detention and torture, even reaching beyond national borders to pursue dissidents abroad. Second, the newly launched National Supervisory Commission (NSC), China’s top anti-graft agency, blurs the line between the party and the state. Its considerable investigative powers lack even basic due process protections for the more than 100 million persons under its jurisdiction. Third, the judiciary and lawyers, ostensibly independent actors in the system, are too constrained to check human rights abuses committed by the government.
In 2018, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the “Central Committee for Comprehensive Law-Based Governance” to further enhance the Party’s control of the legal system. The concept of “Comprehensive Law-Based Governance,” as articulated and practiced at present, is far different from the conventional idea of the “rule of law” that keeps public authorities in check. The Party-State’s efforts to suppress the growth of an independent judicial system appear to come from a sense of insecurity about any challenge to the Party’s monopoly over state power. Yet, facing multiplying social problems in China, with many involving controversies about public power, the government will find it difficult to resolve disputes between the state and the people without a fair justice system.
Keywords: human rights, justice, personal freedom, fair trial, rule of law, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation