Rights Group Urges China to End Curbs on Lawyers

By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
December 11, 2006

Rules requiring Chinese lawyers to submit to government supervision when representing clients in politically delicate cases have dealt a serious blow to the country’s legal system and should be rescinded, Human Rights Watch said in a report to be issued Monday.

The rights group said the rules, known as “guiding opinions,” effectively shut down the legal system to people fighting official land confiscations, forced relocation, corruption, pollution and other politically delicate matters in China’s one-party system.

“These restrictions effectively deprive people with lawful collective complaints of meaningful legal representations and risk instilling a sense of futility about legal avenues of redress,” the report said. “That may exacerbate social unrest in the future.”

The Chinese police have reported a surge in “mass incidents,” including large demonstrations, in the past several years, with 87,000 such events in 2005.

Statistics for the first nine months of 2006 showed a decline in the number of protests from the year before, but Human Rights Watch said that the numbers were subject to political manipulation and that anecdotal evidence suggested rising discontent.

The “guiding opinions,” which were put into effect in the spring, require lawyers who accept cases that involve 10 or more plaintiffs suing organs of the government or the ruling party to submit to “guidance and supervision” by their local judicial bureau and the All-China Lawyers Association, which are under government control.

They also must obtain consent from at least three partners in their law firm before accepting such cases, and they must refrain from “stirring up” news media coverage.

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