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October 06, 2005
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Sunny side down
It's not easy being optimistic about China's future. First the crushing fallout over Taishi continues, says the SCMP: Guangdong police have formally arrested a rights activist after holding him in custody for three weeks for advising Taishi villagers during their fight to oust the village chief, according to a lawyer who visited him recently...Mr Yang was detained for "disturbing social stability by mass gathering" on September 13 - a day after more than 1,000 armed police stormed the Taishi government office and took away dozens of villagers. The villagers were demanding the removal of village head Chen Jinshen after alleging that he had misused village funds.Meanwhile a social call by a professor and a lawyer on a noted activist finished up with knuckle sandwiches. Again the SCMP: A Beijing law lecturer and a lawyer paying a social visit to a blind activist under house arrest in Shandong were escorted back to the capital after being beaten by thugs on Tuesday and interrogated until early yesterday. But Xu Zhiyong , 32, from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and Li Fangping , 30, a lawyer in a private practice, said they would not be deterred by the attack, which came as they attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng , an opponent of violent, government-backed birth-control measures in Linyi city.But the final sucker punch is the most subtle. I am a great believer that consistent, open and honest rule of law is a key to freedom. Rule of law has three important aspects: legislation (by a parliament with elected representatives), enforcement (by police that are not corrupt and closely monitored) and the justice system (again sans corruption, with timely and fair decisions and clear checks and balances). However China's court system is buckling under the strain of an explosion in lawsuits, increased workloads and a falling number of lowly paid judges. We can prattle on about freedom and democracy all we like, but the details matter as much as the broad brushstrokes. The SCMP on China's rickety court system: Beijing's Chaoyang District Court is one of the busiest lower-level courts in the capital. Last year it took on a record 46,000 lawsuits, but that record looks certain to be overtaken this year, with the court having accepted about 31,000 cases in the first half of the year alone.posted by Simon on 10.06.05 at 10:17 AM in the China politics category. ![]() ![]()
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