Chinese lawyers call for greater protection of rights

Amid a spate of arrests of lawyers, Chinese advocates have sought greater protection of their rights especially when meeting with their clients and speaking up in court.
Guaranteeing lawyers' rights is an important part of developing the rule of law in China, several delegates of the National People's Congress (NPC) and members of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) said.
"Lawyers are sometimes a vulnerable group in society, whose rights require better protection, as the group faces both new and old problems," CPPCC member Liu Hongyu, also a Beijing-based lawyer, was quoted by the state-run Global Times as saying at the symposium.

According to the Procuratorial Daily, old problems include restrictions in meeting with their clients and obstacles in collecting evidence and conducting investigations, while the new ones include limited debates at court hearings.
Several lawyers have been detained or questioned by police in recent months.
A report in the New York Times early this year said over the last six months, the Chinese authorities have detained or summoned for questioning more than 200 legal practitioners who had worked on civil rights cases.

While some have been released, several prominent lawyers now face criminal charges, including subverting state power, which can carry a sentence of up to life in prison, the NYT report said.

Such problems were echoed by Heilongjiang-based lawyer Li Yalan, who is also an NPC delegate.
There is no specific government body authorised to deal with those problems even if a regulation on protecting lawyers' rights issued last September has, for the first time, provided for the establishment of such a body, Li said.
In her bills, Li called for an amendment to the current law on lawyers which she said is "outdated" and "too general," stressing that the amendment should be made by an independent organisation, not judicial authorities, the report said.
Li Dajin, another Beijing-based NPC delegate and lawyer, told the symposium that he has proposed a nationwide inspection of the implementation of the law on lawyers, since the law has been in effect for 20 years.

As China deepens judicial reform to better guarantee justice, lawyers must be actively involved in the process, for their expertise in legal affairs can make them better supervisors in courts and procuratorates, the lawmakers and advisers said.