Justice fears over reform plans to rank China's lawyers
Critics say proposal to grade advocates could be used to silence opponents and further curtail legal debate in mainland courtrooms
Plans to rank mainland lawyers by seniority and restrict key cases to “qualified” advocates have raised fears of even greater government interference and abuse of the justice system.
The plans dovetail with a broader push by Beijing to “rule the country by law”, a series of reforms that include frequent references to political loyalty to the ruling Communist Party.
Renmin University law professor Chen Weidong told a Guangzhou law symposium on the weekend that under the proposal local justice bureaus would award ranks to lawyers and only those over a certain level would be allowed to take cases in higher courts, the New Express Daily reported yesterday.
Chen, who has helped draft legislation, including amendments to the criminal law, also said lawyers would need specific qualifications to take on various types of cases, such as death penalty cases.
Beijing-based lawyer Yang Xuelin said the plan would “ruin the legal industry” if put into 8action.
“The proposal is not to defend the rights of our clients, nor to make the best use of the lawyers’ talent. It’s to exclude lawyers the authorities don’t like,” Yang said.
“The justice bureaus like the lawyers who don’t cause trouble and don’t oppose court rulings. But the most popular lawyers among clients happen to be the opposite.”
