NationStates Jolt Archive


Moral of this story: Don't get in trouble in China!

Eutrusca
12-11-2005, 13:33
COMMENTARY: Given the human tendency to often believe that "everyone else is just like us," it's sometimes easy to forget that things like a just judicial system many times just doesn't exist. One Chinese father's desperate struggle to get justice for his son.


Desperate Search for Justice: One Man vs. China (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/international/asia/12china.html?th&emc=th)


By JIM YARDLEY
Published: November 12, 2005
CHAOHU, China - At his most desperate, when he had no more borrowed money for his son's legal defense, Xie Yujun went to a hospital. He knew of China's black market in body parts. He wanted to sell his eyes. He was refused.

Xie Yujun said he is obligated to defend his son to protect the reputation of the entire family. "I will appeal for my son until the day I die."

Mr. Xie, 60, is no stranger to desperate acts, if by necessity. His son was charged with a savage knife attack here in rural Anhui Province that left a mother and daughter badly wounded. The police suspected the son because of a property dispute between the families. But Mr. Xie believed the case was deeply flawed: the victims never identified the attacker. The only evidence was a questionable shoeprint. Police misconduct was blatant.

Mr. Xie's problem was convincing a court. His son's lawyers had no chance to question witnesses or, initially, to examine evidence. At one point, Mr. Xie himself sneaked into a prison to interview a witness. Even a tantalizing appeals court victory proved hollow. The son was tried again and sentenced to life in prison.

"There must be one person in the Communist Party who is honest and who believes in justice," Mr. Xie said. "If I can't even find one, then the party is not going to last long."

China's authoritarian government once relied on ideology and brute force to bind and regulate society. Now, it is asking citizens like Mr. Xie to have faith in the country's legal system to resolve disputes and mete out justice.

But Mr. Xie's plaintive cry poses a fundamental question about China's promise of rule of law: Is it possible for a criminal defendant to get a fair trial?

For most of the 56-year history of the People's Republic of China, the answer, by any standard, has been no. But in 1996, facing international and domestic pressure, China introduced reforms that expanded a criminal defendant's right to counsel and sought to create a more impartial judiciary.

Yet today the inadequacy of those reforms, and the reluctance of the ruling Communist Party to make meaningful change, is abundantly evident. The criminal trial of Mr. Xie's son was one of 770,947 adjudicated last year. Of that total, 99.7 percent ended in convictions.

Conviction rates are also high in the United States, especially in federal criminal cases. But legal experts say that American prosecutors more often decline to indict in weak cases, and that judges and juries retain the autonomy to deliver innocent verdicts in even the most high-profile cases.

The stark imbalance in China reflects a fundamental contradiction for China's top leaders. They want people like Mr. Xie to trust the legal system because public support is essential in ensuring social stability. But they believe the law should enhance, not erode, government power, and have shown little inclination to replace a system that guarantees convictions with one that guarantees the rights of the accused.

A quarter century ago, after the chaos of Mao's Cultural Revolution, China essentially had no legal system. In that context, it has made significant strides. The 1996 reforms were intended to shift toward an adversarial trial process, modeled in part after the American system. Instead, the reforms have become most notable for what was left out.

"They didn't put in rules of evidence," said Jonathan Hecht, deputy director of the China Law Center at Yale University. "They didn't put in requirements that witnesses appear at trial. Lawyers weren't given the ability to really prepare a case. They kind of created the shell of an adversarial process, but they didn't create the guts of it."

At the same time, the police, prosecutors and judges now often disregard the protections that Chinese law does offer. A defendant, for instance, has the right to see a lawyer after the initial interrogation, or usually within 24 hours. Yet a police survey in Beijing found that over the past two years, only 14.5 percent of defendants in the city had seen a lawyer in the first 48 hours.

Other obstacles facing defendants are abundant: defense lawyers deemed too aggressive can be indicted by the prosecutors opposing them in court; appellate courts rarely overturn convictions; rulings often are decided by unseen committees for whom political considerations can be as important as the law.

[ This article is 5 pages long. To read the entire article, go here (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/12/international/asia/12china.html?pagewanted=2&th&emc=th). ]
The Bloated Goat
12-11-2005, 13:38
Time for a revolution, perhaps? :mp5:
Eutrusca
12-11-2005, 13:55
Time for a revolution, perhaps? :mp5:
One would think. At least a bloodless one. But not an easy thing to do when the government doesn't give a shit how many Tienananmen Squares happen. :(
Fass
12-11-2005, 15:34
China an evil dictatorship? You don't say. As long as they make cheap goods and open their market to us, we in the West won't care.
Carops
12-11-2005, 15:39
China an evil dictatorship? You don't say. As long as they make cheap goods and open their market to us, we in the West won't care.
This is what happens in a Communist country. I hope all you forum commies are reading this...
Monkeypimp
12-11-2005, 15:49
It's china. What were you expecting?
Eutrusca
12-11-2005, 19:03
It's china. What were you expecting?
More of the same. I just thought it was a rather poigniant story is all. :p
Randomlittleisland
12-11-2005, 19:12
This is what happens in a Communist country. I hope all you forum commies are reading this...

Yes, I suppose the USSR was a communist country too.:rolleyes:
Eutrusca
12-11-2005, 19:14
Yes, I suppose the USSR was a communist country too.:rolleyes:
Oh, absolutely! They just grew to like the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" a bit too much. :p
Teh_pantless_hero
12-11-2005, 19:39
This is what happens in a Communist country. I hope all you forum commies are reading this...
I'm sorry but what the fuck is wrong with you?
Eutrusca
12-11-2005, 19:40
I'm sorry but what the fuck is wrong with you?
Perhaps the fact that he has to tolerate pointless and insulting questions from reality-challenged NS General posters who haven't a clue? :D
Carops
12-11-2005, 19:43
I'm sorry but what the fuck is wrong with you?
And that was appropriate how? If you have an opinion get something interesting to say rather than that.
The Lone Alliance
12-11-2005, 19:48
How can it be communist if the factories are all privately owned Capitallist companies???
Carops
12-11-2005, 19:49
Perhaps the fact that he has to tolerate pointless and insulting questions from reality-challenged NS General posters who haven't a clue? :D
Thankyou
Charlen
12-11-2005, 19:56
I always knew China had a fucked up government. I mean, look at their population control...
Vetalia
12-11-2005, 20:01
How can it be communist if the factories are all privately owned Capitallist companies???

Well, there are also the massive state owned enterprises; however, China formally declared an end to the centrally planned economic targets in its most recent 5-year plan. It's Communist®.

Of course, the influx of capitalism has helped to somewhat destabilize the autocracy, but it's going to take a real push to democratize it. Right now, it's a bastardized combination of the USSR and Batistan Cuba.
Serapindal
12-11-2005, 20:04
Nah. It's more of a bastardized illegitimate child of the U.S.S.R and the U.S.

Communism to China is like Democracy to America. They both say they support it, and they say they're trying to spread it, but everyone knows they aren't.
Vetalia
12-11-2005, 20:07
Nah. It's more of a bastardized illegitimate child of the U.S.S.R and the U.S.

That's also pretty accurate; the main thing is that the nation's economy is being lifted by foreign investment, and that these companies have massive influence in the governmen which is an autocracy.
Serapindal
12-11-2005, 20:08
China isn't an Autocracy. An Autocracy is a country ruled completely by one person. The Magna Carta sorta killed Autocracy.

It's a one party state. Sorta like what America would be if you forcibly combined the Democratic and Republican Party into one party.
Randomlittleisland
12-11-2005, 20:09
Oh, absolutely! They just grew to like the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" a bit too much. :p

No no no....

Russia was never communist or socialist, it was Leninist and then Stalinist. Both of these systems were little more than state controlled capitalism.

Oh, and before somebody starts ranting about how 'communism' wrecked Russia I'd like to point out that it was completely screwed up long before the revolution.
Serapindal
12-11-2005, 20:10
No no no....

Russia was never communist or socialist, it was Leninist and then Stalinist. Both of these systems were little more than state controlled capitalism.

Oh, and before somebody starts ranting about how 'communism' wrecked Russia I'd like to point out that it was completely screwed up long before the revolution.

Communism didn't screw up Russia. It took a fucked up country with no industry, and transformed it into the world's greatest non-US superpower. Of course, at the cost of 30-50 million lives...but eh.
Carops
12-11-2005, 20:12
Communism didn't screw up Russia. It took a fucked up country with no industry, and transformed it into the world's greatest non-US superpower. Of course, at the cost of 30-50 million lives...but eh.

No.... It created a monster
Vetalia
12-11-2005, 20:14
China isn't an Autocracy. An Autocracy is a country ruled completely by one person. The Magna Carta sorta killed Autocracy.

It's a one party state. Sorta like what America would be if you forcibly combined the Democratic and Republican Party into one party.

It really depends. China's supreme body is the National People's Congress, but there's also the State Council that rules in between congresses, or for four out of ever 5 years; it's probably most accurate to call it an oligarchy. However, it's hard to tell exactly how much power the President/Premier actually have.
Randomlittleisland
12-11-2005, 20:14
China isn't an Autocracy. An Autocracy is a country ruled completely by one person. The Magna Carta sorta killed Autocracy.

It's a one party state. Sorta like what America would be if you forcibly combined the Democratic and Republican Party into one party.

What are you on?

The Magna Carta only affected England and even after that the monarch was still pretty much the supreme ruler until the civil war; up until then parliament was little more than a rubber stamp and rarely contradicted the will of the monarch.

Oh, and Russia was an Autocracy under the Tsar right up till 1917, 702 years after the Magna carta (1215 AD)...
Serapindal
12-11-2005, 20:14
No.... It created a monster

Monster and superpower are not self-exclusive.
Serapindal
12-11-2005, 20:15
What are you on?

The Magna Carta only affected England and even after that the monarch was still pretty much the supreme ruler until the civil war; up until then parliament was little more than a rubber stamp and rarely contradicted the will of the monarch.

Oh, and Russia was an Autocracy under the Tsar right up till 1917, 702 years after the Magna carta (1215 AD)...

Well, you get the picture. I'm not an expert on medieval history. But still, China's not ruled by one guy. It's ruled by several people. Autocracy doesn't exist anymore. Hell, even Nazi Germany wasn't an autocracy. Hitler didn't have absolute power. (Though REEEALLLLY close)
Carops
12-11-2005, 20:22
Monster and superpower are not self-exclusive.
Fair point.
But Communism is simply a vehicle for madmen to get power.
Serapindal
12-11-2005, 20:23
Fair point.
But Communism is simply a vehicle for madmen to get power.

And Democracy isn't?

*points to Hitler*
Vetalia
12-11-2005, 20:26
And Democracy isn't?
*points to Hitler*

I think we could say that any system provides a means to dictatorship unless the people are knowledgeable enough to stop it and the system is designed to inhibit it (no Article 48)
Carops
12-11-2005, 20:31
And Democracy isn't?

*points to Hitler*

True, but people voted for Hitler. That's their fault not democracy's
Froood
12-11-2005, 20:58
The way I understand it the superstate was supposed to be means to end- eventually government was supposed to rot away leaving everyone to live peaceably in autominous communes.

I'm a commited centrist myself but I don't see why American communists don't just set up a bunch of communes somewhere and vote Republican until there is no governement left. Heh. :p
Froood
12-11-2005, 21:12
On serious note, it took 2000 years to get democrasy right. Hitler wasn't the first to subvert democracy and probably won't be the last.
Carops
12-11-2005, 21:14
On serious note, it took 2000 years to get democrasy right. Hitler wasn't the first to subvert democracy and probably won't be the last.

True. The Athenian Democracy was in fact more democratic than the system we have today.