Chinese enjoy better judicial guarantee for human rights

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, March 30, 2004

Chinese enjoy better judicial guarantee for human rights

China has further beefed up its judicial reform, making significant progress in judicial guarantee for human rights in 2003, said a government white paper issued Tuesday.

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China has further beefed up its judicial reform, making significant progress in judicial guarantee for human rights in 2003, said a government white paper issued Tuesday.

China had cracked down on various criminal offenses in accordance with the law to protect people's life and the safety of their property, said the white paper titled Progress in China's Human Right Cause in 2003, issued by the Information Office of the State Council.

In 2003, the Chinese police investigated and clamped 2.34 million criminal cases including gangster-related crimes, homicide, robbery, rape and kidnapping.

The courts ended 634,953 criminal cases at first trial, of which 57,505 were threatening public security, 184,018 were infringing civil rights and democratic rights, and 278,969 were of property infringements, effectively protecting people's legal rights and interests.

Last year, the government carried out a major reform in its social assistance program, replacing the "Measures for the Sheltering and Send-off of Urban Vagrants and Beggars" with the more humane and law-based "Measures for Assisting and Managing Urban Vagrants and Beggars with No Means of Livelihood."

The police announced the "Provisions on Procedures of Handling Administrative Cases by the Police" which tightened procedures to enforce laws. The police also improved internal supervision over law enforcement and rigidly clamped violation of human rights including extorting confessions by torture, abusing guns and other coercive measures.

The Ministry of Public Security put forward 30 measures to make people more easily deal with issues like residence register, traffic, entry and exit and fire control, winning applause across the country.

The white paper said China has made great efforts to prevent and correct cases of extended detention to protect legal rights and interests of the suspects and the accused.

In 2003, extended detention cases implicating 25,736 people were corrected, the most extensive in scale with the most people involved in the country's judicial history.

The courts ended 88,050 lawsuits against the government at first trial last year and in 10,337 cases of them, or 11.74 percent of the total, improper administrative actions were canceled.

Meanwhile, 3,124 cases requesting state compensation were taken to court and the compensation of 89.74 million yuan was granted with the trials.

Last year the procuratorates brought to court 259 cases of illegal detention, 29 of illegal search, 52 of extorting confessions by torture and 32 of abusing prisoners or detainees while they appealed against improper judgment in 2,906 criminal cases and handed in 1,184 written proposals on illegal operations by the courts in criminal cases.

By June 2003, prosecuting attorneys have been sent to 92 percent of the country's prisons, detention houses and reeducation-through-labor centers.

China issued its first regulation on legal aid in 2003. There were 2,774 legal aid agencies nationwide last year, up 356 from 2002 and legal aid was given in 166,433 cases, up 36,658.

In the same year, the court reduced and exempted lawsuit fees of 141 million yuan and delayed payment of 916-million-yuan fees, allowing people in financial difficulties to go to court.

The white paper also noted that the legal rights and interests of criminals are well protected in China.

Last year the Ministry of Justice issued a series of regulations, such as the one on rectification and reeducation in prisons, the one on the procedures to apply for commutation and parole and on visits and correspondence of foreign prisoners, in a bid to define the legal rights of prisoners more accurately.

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