Dana Lake ‘23
Production Editor
China’s legal profession has evolved along with changes in government priorities and social movements. Today, foreign law firms can establish branches in China and take part in the country’s massive economy. Many restrictions remain, however. For example, foreign lawyers cannot take the Chinese bar exam or practice Chinese law. Even for native Chinese lawyers, politics remain a massive barrier to justice.
China has had thousands of years of history that has formed its legal system. But despite its ancient history, China’s legal profession has only existed in its current form for a few decades. Below is an extremely brief summary of the tumultuous road Chinese law has taken.
The earliest fully preserved Chinese legal code dates to the 600s. It was a primarily inquisitorial system with strong Confucian foundations. Modern Chinese law began with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and a push for a western-styled code of law in the 1920s, followed by an informal decentralized system that emphasized social pressure under Mao in the 1950s. The next decade saw a push for codification, more judicial autonomy, and the growth of the legal profession—gains that were largely erased during the Cultural Revolution. It wasn’t until Mao’s death in the 1970s that China’s first criminal legal code was enacted. The 1980s saw growth in the legal system once again, with the 1982 Constitution expanding individual rights and denying exemptions for party leaders. A civil code was introduced, and by the 1990s, an adversarial system was adopted. Under Xi, China has continued to grow its legal profession while maintaining a strong central government.
What this summary only hints at are the executions, disappearances, and imprisonments of many of the legal professionals who have worked to push China into a modern system of law. Their work has not ended. The Weiquan Movement continues to push for greater freedom of speech, defend persecuted minorities, and fight for greater food safety and environmental protections.[1] Lawyers who take cases that contribute to the movement put their own freedoms on the line.
The 709 crackdown is a recent example. In 2015, more than 200 Chinese lawyers and Human Rights activists were arrested, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured for their work.[2] The defense attorneys for those arrested in the round-up found themselves facing legal action for taking their cases.[3]
Pictured: Human Rights Attorney Ren Quanniu was Disbarred for his Advocacy. Credit: Photo Courtesy of: Leo Ramirez/AFP via Getty Images
In a country where the prosecution has a conviction rate of over 99%, Chinese defense attorneys already have a high bar to overcome for their clients.[4] In high-profile or politically sensitive cases, it can be impossible. Attorneys are blocked from meeting with incarcerated clients, and accused parties are often assigned government counsel instead. If the defense attorney is not imprisoned themselves, they increasingly face disbarment as retribution for not stepping down.
This is what happened to the lawyer who sparked this article.[5] Ren Quanniu is a human rights attorney who specializes in religious freedoms. In 2016, the Chinese Ministry of Justice passed an order making it illegal for lawyers to advocate for their clients outside the courtroom.[6] For Ren, it was his language in the courtroom that provided the grounds for his disbarment: While defending a member of a religious minority, he refused to call his client’s movement a cult.
Another Chinese attorney, Zhou Ze, recently had his license to practice law suspended for publishing a video of police torturing his client to force a confession. Other human rights lawyers, like Gao Zhisheng, who was last seen in 2017, have been “disappeared” and their whereabouts are unknown.[7] More commonly, defense attorneys find themselves in positions like Sui Muqing. Sui was not only disbarred for representing a human rights advocate who had done work for the families of Tiananmen Square protesters, but he also continues to be completely censored.[8] He cannot publish writings or have any social media accounts.
The risk for Chinese attorneys in politically sensitive cases is enormous. Even in modern China, the repercussions for representing sensitive clients range from secret, indefinite detention to the end of one’s financial livelihood. Still, Chinese attorneys continue to defend political prisoners and human rights advocates. I was driven to write this article because of a quote from Ren that struck me in a way that I hope will also strike you. The quote is from shortly before he was disbarred: “Even if my lawyer's license is canceled, I have at least made good use of it.”
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dl9uh@virginia.edu
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/magazine/the-lonely-crusade-of-chinas-human-rights-lawyers.html
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/magazine/the-lonely-crusade-of-chinas-human-rights-lawyers.html
[3] https://ge.usembassy.gov/five-years-of-injustice-following-chinas-709-crackdown-july-8/
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/world/asia/china-inmate-murder-zhang-yuhuan.html
[5] https://www.npr.org/2021/02/18/963217332/where-no-one-dares-speak-up-china-disbars-lawyers-on-sensitive-cases
[6] http://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2016/content_5113014.htm
[7] https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/asa17/0199/2019/en/
[8] https://www.npr.org/2017/10/12/557444676/chinese-activist-in-government-custody-is-in-failing-health