Tag Archives: CCDI

Communist Party and the Courts

Results of inspector findings at SPC

1 Comment

20170221233254_59648

In November, 2016, this blog reported on Central Inspection Group (CIG) #2 inspecting the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) ’s Communist Party group.  Recently, CIG #2 came back with feedback on its inspection.  SPC leadership was in attendance and circuit court leadership participated by videoconference. A rough translation of the problems identified follows:

During the tour, the inspection team found…some problems, mainly: “four consciousnesses” need to be further strengthened; political discipline and political rules are not implemented strictly enough; the leadership role of the Party group is insufficiently developed;  there are some gaps in the coordination of the advancement of the system of judicial system reform; the implementation of responsibility system for ideological attitude (意识形态责任制落实不够有力); there are weak links in Party construction; organizational construction is not systematic enough; internal Party political life is not strict enough; relevance of ideological political work is not strong; some Party leading cadres’ Party thinking is diluted (有的党员领导干部党的观念淡漠); the role of the basic level Party organization as a fighting fortress is insufficient; comprehensive strict governance of the Party is not strong, the implementation of the central eight point regulations is not strict enough; formalism and bureaucratic issues still exist; tourism using public funds, abuse of allowances and subsidies still occurs; personnel selection is not standardized; cadre management is not strict enough; there are some areas of clean government risk.

The report revealed that some cases have been referred to CCDI and the Party’s Organization Department for further handling.

President (and Party Secretary) Zhou Qiang accepted the criticism and promised to deal with it. A separate report revealed that a rectification strategy has been adopted and an office established to implement measures to respond to the criticism.

Comment

It is difficult, if not impossible for this observer to have independent sources of information on the implementation of political discipline, political rules, and ideological work in the SPC.

It does appear (to the outside observer) from the constant flow of judicial reform documents, judicial interpretations, judgments (and rulings), and the many other documents released by the SPC, that the large number of SPC judges and other support personnel have been professionally extremely productive.

One criticism that I had heard before was about coordination in the judicial reforms. As to why some reforms were rolled out before others, the reasons are likely complicated and relate to what was ready to go and generally accepted.  As to the implications one reform has on other reforms or the existing system, that is much more difficult to analyze, particularly if (as I suspect), the SPC’s judicial reform office does not have enough people to cope with the complexities of implementing judicial reforms in a highly bureaucratic state.

On the cases of violation of Party discipline revealed, it would appear that they were limited in number and apparently limited (for the most part?) to minor infractions, such as fiddling with subsidies and using government cars for private purposes.  In a large bureaucracy such as the SPC, it seems fair to assume that a few infractions are likely to occur. It seems reasonable to surmise that these cases will be wrapped up swiftly, before the upcoming National People’s Congress session, and we will learn more about the specific cases.

 

Communist Party and the Courts

Inspectors stationed at the Supreme People’s Court & Procuratorate

Leave a comment
1034391
CIG mobilization meeting at the SPC

Close followers of the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) media outlets will have noticed a 15 November report of a mobilization meeting of the Central Inspection Group (CIG) #2 inspecting the SPC’s Communist Party group.  A brief report on CCTV is found here. Further digging reveals that news of the inspection was released on the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) website in early November, and that the inspection is part of the current round of CIG inspections of 27 Party, government, and other entities.  Other legal institutions being inspected in this round include the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) and the China Law Society (a mass (government organized non-government organization)).  The Ministry of Public Security was inspected earlier this year in an earlier round,  along with the State Council’s Legislative Affairs Office, the National People’s Congress (including its Legislative Affairs Commission), the State Intellectual Property Office, and many others.

A report on CIG #7’s mobilization meeting at the SPP was released at the same as the SPC’s, and is worded similarly to the SPC report.These institutions are being inspected for approximately a two month period, from 11 November (14 November for the SPP) to 10 January 2017.

w020161115682784449606
CIG mobilization meeting at SPP

Background on CIGs and how they operate can be found in a recent New York Times article (focusing on the Ministry of Public Security’s inspection) and this scholarly article by Professor Fu Hualing of the University of Hong Kong’s law faculty.

According to these  notices, the focus is on the Party leadership of these institutions, at the highest and next highest level, and compliance with political and Party discipline.

Some comments

Matters that require the attention of the SPC’s  senior leadership (and similarly the SPP’s), of which there are many (one small example is considering whether a draft judicial interpretation is ready for passage) , are likely to find a much slower response time, as persons in the most senior positions, and those senior personnel with whom they work most closely, will most likely be preoccupied with responding to the requests of the inspectors. (This insight is derived from my personal experience (with school inspectors), my many discussions with in-house counsel facing government inspectors, and the rich professional/scholarly commentary on government inspections/audits).

I can only hope (as a long-time foreign observer of the SPC (and less so of the SPP), that the leaders of these institutions have done a good job in personal compliance, as well as signalling to their institutions the importance of complying with various types of political and Party discipline, because a well-functioning Chinese judicial system (and a prosecutorial system) is important not only for China, but the rest of the world.

One small example of the work facing the SPC that is relevant to the rest of the world is one of the Chinese government’s commitments at the Hangzhou G20 meeting, which requires the SPC to take on a major role in improving the operation of China’s bankruptcy system:

China and the United States recognize the importance of the establishment and improvement of impartial bankruptcy systems and mechanisms. China attaches great importance to resolving excess capacity through the systems and mechanisms relating to mergers and acquisitions; restructuring; and bankruptcy reorganization, bankruptcy settlement, and bankruptcy liquidation, according to its laws. In the process of addressing excess capacity, China is to implement bankruptcy laws by continuing to establish special bankruptcy tribunals, further improving the bankruptcy administrator systems and using modern information tools. China and the United States commit to, starting as early as 2016, conduct regular and ad hoc communication and exchanges regarding the implementation of our respective bankruptcy laws through forums or mutual visits.

 

Commercial law, Communist Party and the Courts

Updated musings on Supreme People’s Court Vice President Xi Xiaoming

1 Comment

Vice President Xi XiaomingThis updated blogpost muses on Judge Xi Xiaoming, and:

  • phenomena of “assumption of guilt” and trial in the press
  • political factors in Chinese judicial decision-making;
  •  judicial corruption;
  •  implications for related parties;
  •  investigation-centered criminal justice system
  •  effect on lower court judges;
  • the intellectual legacy of Judge Xi;
  •  effect on the credibility of the judicial system.

The comments below are made with no further information about Judge Xi’s case than what is publicly available.

The background

In the late afternoon of 12 July, Xinhua news issued a statement reporting that the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) announced that Supreme People’s Court (Court) Vice President Xi Xiaoming, was under investigation for violation of Party discipline and law.  Judge Xi has worked in the Court for over thirty years and is well known for his expertise in civil and commercial law. The announcement caused shockwaves in the Chinese legal community. Chinese press reports have linked the allegations to a case involving a 420 million RMB dispute over shareholding in a Shanxi coal mine, but the allegations have not been confirmed by the CCDI.

On 20 August, Meng Jianzhu, head of the Central Political Legal Committee, made the following statement about Judge Xi: “Xi Xiaoming has shamed the judiciary, as a experienced judge who has worked in the Supreme People’s Court for 33 years, who has colluded with certain  illegal lawyers, judicial brokers, and lawless business people by accepting huge bribes. “作为在最高法院工作33年的老法官，奚晓明却同个别违法律师、司法掮客、不法商人相互勾结，收受巨额贿赂，这是司法界的耻辱。”

 “Presumption of guilt” and trial in the press

Judge Xi is under investigation by the CCDI and it has not yet been reported that the procuracy has yet filed a case against him.  It does not seem that the lawyers involved in the Shanxi case have been prosecuted or penalized for illegal activity.  Meng Jianzhu’s statement evidences two phenomenon in Chinese criminal justice–the presumption of guilt and “trying” suspects in the press

As Zhu Zhengfu, the vice-chairman of the All China Lawyers Association warned earlier this year, there is a widespread and dangerous “presumption of guilt” among mainland law enforcers.”  Zhu proposed a law be enacted to fully protect each citizen’s right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

“An arrest is made on one day, then the next day you have the suspect confessing on television, and some are forced to confess,” Zhu said.

“After the confession, [law enforcers] immediately say the case has been solved and they celebrate their achievement. So you can imagine how much pressure the court is under if it wants to pass an innocent verdict.”

As Si Wejiang of the Debund Law Firm pointed out, CCTV often declares a person guilty even before the procuracy has approved his arrest and does not give his defense lawyer a chance to speak.

Complex politics of large commercial disputes in China

In private comments, several senior Chinese lawyers and other Chinese legal experts have suggested that Judge Xi’s case is not a simple case of corruption, but is tied to more complex political factors.
As two DLA Piper lawyers commented in a Practical Law publication, “large commercial disputes between Chinese parties are usually settled with the help of political influence and/or commercial pressure, with the rule of law methods such as litigation and arbitration either not used at all or used as a bargaining tool.”

They further noted that in recent years “there has been a return to non-rule of law methods of settlement, particularly in relation to disputes involving over CNY100 million.”

The senior lawyers noted that judges hearing cases involving politically powerful litigants (called interest groups in Chinese political jargon) may be under pressure to decide the cases in particular way (as further described in the next section). As time goes on, the litigants may not be as politically powerful as before, and the judgment (and the judges who made decisions) may be called into question.

Corruption in the courts

The corruption allegations are said to be connected to the Shanxi case, reported in further detail in the Caxin report.  But the corruption allegations may be more complicated than they appear.  As several  academic studies have noted, judicial corruption in China has several root causes related to the nature of the judicial system.  In her 2014 book,  The Judicial System and Reform in Post-Mao China, Li Yuwen, Professor of Chinese Law at Erasmus University stated:

First, the lack of judicial independence leaves room for corruption.In practice, when a case is brought to court or assigned to a judge, court officials or the responsible judge are often contacted by various people–the most influential ones are those with government positions….In addition, the lack of recognition of the nature of the judiciary to enforce law fairly and efficiently also results in a puzzling perception of courts and judges….

Secondly, judicial corruption cannot be divorced from its social context…It is unrealistic to expect judges to operate completely outside the social environment, especially in the absence of a workable system to reduce the incidence of judicial corruption….

Thirdly, certain shortcomings of the court system leave the door open for corruption. For instance, the flexible use of the re-trial system leads to the easy re-opening of cases if influential people wish to interfere in the case. This not only diminishes the finality of the case but also creates opportunities for using personal networking to change a court’s judgment. Furthermore, the relatively law judicial salary makes judges an easy target for corruption…In modern-day China, a profession’s income is too often linked to the profession’s social status. Judges’ low salaries are not conducive to building self-respect amongst the profession and, moreover, they constitute a major ground for fostering judicial corruption.

So returning to the social context of 2011. A number of Chinese lawyers and academics have privately noted that at the time of the case in question, it would not be unusual for supplemental payments to be made to Court judges in connection with commercial disputes involving large amounts of money, and refusing payment could also have been awkward for those involved.  Whether this was in fact the case for Judge Xi is not known.

Implications for related parties

It is likely that the anti-corruption investigation into Judge Xi will touch on parties, including other judges, related to the case(s) in question.  It is also likely that the full extent of the investigation will not be made public.

Investigation-centered criminal justice system

Judge Xi is now experiencing the Chinese investigation-centered criminal justice system, in which Party members are generally subject to shuanggui, where they are subject to long periods of interrogation outside the formal criminal justice system, followed by repeated interrogations if and when the case is transferred to the procuracy. His case is part of the current anti-corruption campaign.

As Professor Fu Hualing of the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong has written:

The anti-corruption campaign is also a highly politicized process. Investigations are selective, politically motivated, and aim to achieve particular political consequences….

Xi’s campaign further shifts power from legal institutions to the Party’s disciplinary mechanism. Compared with anti-corruption work under the previous government, the current campaign more decisively bypasses legal procedures and institutions. After a brief moment in which law seemed to be able to play a central role in the anti-corruption process, legal institutions have been effectively marginalized to the role of initiating anticorruption
purges of ‘tigers’. There is no longer any meaningful discussion
on the end goals and limits of shuanggui, the Party’s power to detain its own delinquent members and little mention of the creation of a more neutral anti-corruption body.

Effect on other judges?

What will be the effect of Judge Xi’s case on judges in the lower courts, who may not want to find themselves involved in local parallels of his case? Will it lead to further departures of experienced judges?

The intellectual legacy of Judge Xi

Judge Xi has been a major force in the area of civil and commercial law, involved in many major legal developments in China over the past thirty years. He has been involved the drafting of major judicial interpretations, edited many books, and been involved in other major legal initiatives, including, most recently, the drafting of the Civil Code and the establishment of an environmental law research center affiliated with the Court.  The many technical legal reforms in which he has been involved are crucial to the operation of the Chinese judicial system. The initiatives in which he has been involved are likely to go on with other talented people, but he is sure to be missed.

Effect on the credibility of the judicial system

Improving the credibility of the Chinese judicial system is said one of the goals of the Chinese judicial reforms.  We will need to wait and see how Judge Xi’s case progresses, and how both official and unofficial commentators, as well as members of the Chinese public and international community view his case.

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Operations, Court Reform

Supreme People’s Court‘s sunshine cure for corruption in commutation and parole procedures

2 Comments
20140221112449_2571
Prisoner choosing commutation & parole options from corrupt jail official

 

Before Chinese new year, the Supreme People’s Court held a news conference  to highlight its accomplishments in reforming parole procedures. The previous procedures (or lack of them) (as described below) appeared to have been a money-spinner for prison officials. The reform in parole procedures highlights the value that current Chinese legal policy places on Justice Louis D. Brandeis’s wisdom (without citing him):

“Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants…”

The change in parole procedures also are a good example of how results of investigations by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) and Central Political and Legal Committee policy documents are eventually are translated into improvements in legal procedures.

The reforms to parole procedures include:

  • The Court’s August, 2014, Provisions On Commutations And Parole(最高人民法院关于减刑、假释案件审理程序的规定) (translation can be found here), requiring much more transparency;
  • November, 2014 procedures issued by the Court along with the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Public Security, Supreme People’s Procuratorate, and National Health and Family Planning Commission on medical parole and related issues (暂予监外执行规定), establishing stricter guidelines.
  • Establishing an internet platform on the Court website to make public (provide sunlight) parole/commutation matters: acceptance of applications, notice of court hearings,and court rulings;
  • Establishing a filing system under which decisions relating to officials of county level (or section (处) need to filed with provincial high courts and provincial department (bureau level（局)) need to be filed with the Court;
  • Model cases on parole and commutation, to guide lower court judges in their work, and inform the public on these reforms.

    ________.x_large
    Axe labeled “power”, “money”

The background

With flexible provisions and limited transparency on medical parole, commuting sentences, and parole procedures, in recent years apparently underpaid Chinese prison officials caught the entrepreneurial spirit and (like the Monopoly game that many of us grew up playing), sold “get out of jail cards” to those who could afford to pay.  Those were generally made up the wealthy and (formerly) powerful, particularly those who had committed the following crimes:

  • duty crimes (including taking bribes and abusing authority);
  • organized crimes;
  • financial crimes.

An August, 2014 press report mentioned that over 700 prisoners  nationwide had improperly secured early release.  Other reports cited that prison officials in Guangdong were particularly entrepreneurial, arranging for the improper release of approximately 140 in Guangdong, primarily former officials, including:

  • Wang Ju, former vice mayor of Shenzhen;
  • Zhao Yuchun, former head of Shenzhen customs;
  • Huang Shaoxiong, former deputy head of the Guangdong United Front Work Department; and
  • Lin Chongzhong, former deputy mayor of Jiangmen.

CCDI investigations and Central Political Legal Committee policy document

It appears that these reforms can be traced back to CCDI investigations in 2013 (and possibly earlier), because in August, 2013, the CCDI website carried a summary of a speech by Xi Jinping at a CCDI conference in which he calls for reforms to parole procedures. At about the same time reports of  investigations into prison officials were released by CCDI, such as one of a Hunan Province Justice Department (the Justice departments run the prison) official who was found to have almost USD 2 million (12 million RMB) in assets disproportional to his income.  Many other prison officials in other provinces have also been investigated.

In January, 2014, the Central Political Legal Committee issued a policy document outlining the policy framework for the reforms, which began with the frank admission that society was incensed by the rich and powerful who had been sentenced to prison who often served relatively short sentences because they had their sentences commuted or were given parole, directing special restrictions prisoners convicted of the above three types of crimes. (The Supreme People’s Procuratorate has issued its own regulations to implement the policy document.)

Going forward

Reducing corruption in the justice system and giving Chinese people more confidence in it is a multi-faceted process, with greater transparency needed across many areas.  These reforms to parole and commutation procedures are likely to be one of the accomplishments that President Zhou Qiang will be able to point to when he gives his report to the National People’s Congress next month, particularly as the August, 2014 regulations are listed as one of one of the Court’s 10 major policy accomplishments of 2014.

Additionally, the internet platform also serves as a window into criminal activity in China, such as the recent application by a Han native of Xinjiang, convicted in Beijing of dealing in drugs, but who was permitted by the Chaoyang District Court to serve his sentence outside of jail for the next six months, because he has AIDs.

 

 

 

Communist Party and the Courts, Court Operations

Supreme People’s Court’s prescription for the disease of judicial corruption

3 Comments
Basic level judges and flying money
Basic level judges and flying money

In a build up to the National Day holiday (and since), the Supreme People’s Court (the Court) has focused some of its attention on combating the disease of judicial corruption.  The prescription is in the form of three types of Communist Party documents. This blogpost highlights the prescription and speculates on the timing.

The herbs in this traditional prescription comes in the form of:

  •  Six model (typical) cases of violations of the Communist Party’s Eight Point Regulations by court officials ( “cadres and police”/干警)).  (An earlier blogpost analyzed seven earlier model cases that the Court issued.  The six (relatively minor) cases included:
    • a Guizhou county court spending over 500,000 RMB on a trip to Hainan at public expense, lavish banqueting, and abuse of bonuses;
    • leadership of a Shaoguan (Guangdong) court, that caused the death of their dinner guest, an official of a county court, from alcohol poisoning;
    • vice president of a Hunan county court, who used a court vehicle to take his daughter to school;
    • the head of the disciplinary department of a Hancheng (Shaanxi) court caught by a reporter playing video games during work hours;
  • Holiday rules on what not to do during the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays.  The Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (at various levels) issued notices distributed to the courts forbidding officials “gifting” moon cakes, shopping vouchers, “red packets”, and touring at public expense,
  • A document, linked here, providing policy guidance to the disciplinary departments of the courts in rooting corruption out of the courts. The head of these departments is Zhang Jiannan, who is the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection’s  (CCDI’s) chief representative in the Supreme People’s Court, and directs the disciplinary departments of the lower courts. The document is again focused on anti-corruption efforts within the courts.  It directs the disciplinary departments to focus on discipline, report to the local Party disciplinary authorities as well as the disciplinary department of the higher courts, participate in major court internal meetings,  improve the operation of disciplinary inspectors (described below). It directs disciplinary officials to participate in important meetings, drafting of important documents, and clear personnel appointments. The disciplinary officials are directed to implement the Party Constitution as well as 2008 regulations on supervision work in the courts.

Some background

The background for these documents is the Communist Party’s Central Committee’s five year anti-corruption plan (analyzed here).  Following that:

  • the Court’s Party Committee  issued a June, 2014 document on Party discipline:
  • the Court dispatched teams of its own disciplinary inspectors（最高人民法院司法巡查组) to Henan, Ningxia, Fujian and Anhui in May and September.  These disciplinary inspectors are the Court’s counterpart to  the CCDI’s  inspection teams, which at the central level called Central Inspection Groups (中央巡视组) (“CIG”).  These CIGs  uncover corruption and other abuses, under which semi-retired high ranking officials are dispatched to provinces, ministries and SOEs for disciplinary inspection. The political background for these inspection teams is analyzed in this article. These inspection teams have operated in the courts for a number of years and operate according to these rules.
  • The Communist Party Central Committee’s Political Legal Committee issued three batches of “typical cases” of violations of law and Party discipline among the “political legal departments,” (each linked here) which included a substantial number of judges, including Liu Yong of the Supreme People’s Court, removed for suspicion of having taken about 2 million yuan in bribes (about $330,000).

 The timing

The timing for the release of these recent documents appears to be linked to the upcoming Fourth Plenum of the 18th Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, on the rule of law. Part of the agenda, according to reports, is the role of the judiciary, curbing corruption and announcing forthcoming judicial reforms.

A traditional prescription

This prescription for curing the courts of corruption uses the traditional cure of Party discipline rather than judicial ethical models more commonly used in other jurisdictions. The Chinese judiciary has looked at approaches to judicial ethics in other jurisdictions, including Germany, the US, and Hong Kong.  Elements of this prescription, such as having disciplinary officials participate in important meetings and the drafting of important documents appear to be inconsistent with some of the goals in the judicial reform plan of having the judges who heard cases decide them.

Will the prescription be effective?

The current prescription is a variation of what has been prescribed before.  The Court needs to show the political leadership that it is it doing what it can to combat corruption in the courts and is implementing anti-corruption initiatives.  The anti-corruption drive is being led by the CCDI, using Party channels and methods.

Corruption prevents or at least complicates efforts to establish and operate a court system that meets the needs of ordinary people. It appears that the Court leadership is under no illusions about what goes on in the court system.  However, the Court leadership can only work within the current system and with current personnel.  Will the broader anti-corruption campaign lead to a change in China’s social and business culture, of which the judiciary is a part?  Or do these latest initiatives not go to the core of the problem?  换汤不换药?