Corruption in China's judicial system has been so bad that at the rubber-stamp NPC session the reports on it always attract the highest number of votes against the report - as much as 20%. To give you an idea of the scale of the problem almost 17,000 court rulings were later "corrected", more than 17,000 paroles were unwarranted and worryingly only 1,247 of those erroneous parloees were re-arrested. Of the 30,788 public officials prosecuted for corruption last year, almost one third were from the law enforcement or judicial systems. A mid-ranking judge earns abuot 40,000 yuan a year; the lawyers in front of them earn as much as 500,000 yuan. Unsurprisingly, most bribes are offered by lawyers to judges and clients search for lawyers with the best connections.

In China the lawyers really are crooks.