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Labor system reform to uphold rule of law
By Huang Xin |
January 12, 2013, Saturday
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Print Edition
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IMMINENT reform of China's reeducation through labor system sheds new light on the nation's vision of rule by law, since it will contribute to maintaining constitutional rights.
This year the government will push reform of this controversial system that allows police to detain people for as long as four years without an open trial, according to the national political and legal work conference that concluded on Tuesday.
Social tensions have been growing in recent years with China's rapid economic development, partly because people's awareness of human rights has increased while the nation's legal reforms have lagged behind.
The reeducation through labor system was approved by the National People's Congress in the 1950s, a time when the Party was consolidating the new republic and rectifying social order.
While the system was modified to include more regulations from the end of the 1970s to the early 1980s, many experts believe it contradicts higher-level laws including the Constitution.
To accommodate the broad changes that have taken place in China's social and economic spheres, the Constitution was amended four times from 1988 to 2004, including provisions emphasizing protection of human rights and citizens' private property.
Reeducation through labor, however, runs contrary to those amendments as many cases have demonstrated that the system has been misused to persecute innocent people and illegally punish protesters.
Last August, for example, a woman named Tang Hui in central China's Hunan Province was sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp after demanding tougher penalties for the seven men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her 11-year-old daughter. She was released within a week following public outrage.
Expectations are high for reform and the nation's new leadership must now gets real about this issue. The problem, however, is how to prevent abuses of power since some officials are obsessed with rule by man.
Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping has called for a fight against injustice and corruption to ensure "justice in each judicial case." This requires wisdom and courage among those in charge of making and enforcing law, and whether they can succeed remains to be seen.
The author is a Xinhua writer.
This year the government will push reform of this controversial system that allows police to detain people for as long as four years without an open trial, according to the national political and legal work conference that concluded on Tuesday.
Social tensions have been growing in recent years with China's rapid economic development, partly because people's awareness of human rights has increased while the nation's legal reforms have lagged behind.
The reeducation through labor system was approved by the National People's Congress in the 1950s, a time when the Party was consolidating the new republic and rectifying social order.
While the system was modified to include more regulations from the end of the 1970s to the early 1980s, many experts believe it contradicts higher-level laws including the Constitution.
To accommodate the broad changes that have taken place in China's social and economic spheres, the Constitution was amended four times from 1988 to 2004, including provisions emphasizing protection of human rights and citizens' private property.
Reeducation through labor, however, runs contrary to those amendments as many cases have demonstrated that the system has been misused to persecute innocent people and illegally punish protesters.
Last August, for example, a woman named Tang Hui in central China's Hunan Province was sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp after demanding tougher penalties for the seven men convicted of abducting, raping and prostituting her 11-year-old daughter. She was released within a week following public outrage.
Expectations are high for reform and the nation's new leadership must now gets real about this issue. The problem, however, is how to prevent abuses of power since some officials are obsessed with rule by man.
Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping has called for a fight against injustice and corruption to ensure "justice in each judicial case." This requires wisdom and courage among those in charge of making and enforcing law, and whether they can succeed remains to be seen.
The author is a Xinhua writer.
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