Ten Major News in the Community of China’s Lawyers in 2011

• Author: Tan Mintao

1. Lawyers’ right to practice was frequently violated: The Beihai incident exposed the fact that the rights and privileges of lawyers had been severely violated to the world.

2. Lawyers were politically persecuted: Former lawyer Li Zhuang was again charged for the offence of interfering with witness’s testimony..

3. There was no guarantee for lawyers’ personal safety: Lawyer Zhou Ze was threatened. Eight lawyers and legal trainees in Heilongjiang Province were attacked, leading to the miscarriage of a pregnant female lawyer. Lawyer Xu Hengbai of Jiangxi Province was stabbed more than 10 times in front of his house.

4. Multiple lawyers were “missing”: Liu Xiaoyuan, Li Fangping, Li Tiantian, Tang Jitian, Jiang Tianyong, Jin Guanghong, Liu Zhengqing, Teng Biao were missing one after another.

5. The new Criminal Procedure Law (Draft) discriminated against lawyers: The new Criminal Procedure Law (Draft) still had not removed the provisions which give rise to lawyer’s liability for perjury.

6. “Small-scale judicial examinations” were widely adopted: The Public Security Bureau and Procuratorate had launched an internal examination program, known as “small-scale judicial examination”, which had been widely adopted in 2011. By contrast, lawyers were required to continue to participate in the official National Judicial Examination. The ten-year old National Judicial Examination has been tampered with.

7. There will never be direct election in the Lawyers’ Association: After the Shenzhen Lawyers’...