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Right side of law

(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-06-03 07:48

The evolution of the rule of law is a gradual process. This is not only because too drastic changes in the legal system may cause chaos and not necessarily have the desired effect, but also because a process is needed for the people to accept the changes.

The amendments to the Law on Lawyers taking effect on Sunday best demonstrate the steady but gradual progress in the country's legal system.

One of the most noteworthy changes is the specification that a lawyer, with his license, certificate from his or her law firm and the document verifying his or her capacity as an attorney for a client in custody, has the right to meet his or her client. Moreover, the amendment specifies that the talk between them must never be monitored.

Even before the amended Law on Lawyers took effect, the Criminal Procedure Law stipulated that a crime suspect had the right to hire a lawyer to plead his or her case and that the lawyer had the right to consult the public security department about the details of the crime and meet his or her client. But permission from the public security department had to be sought for the meeting.

As a result, it was quite common that lawyers would find it difficult to meet their clients in custody, to read the materials concerning the case and to get necessary evidence on their own. This was because of the bias on the part of public security officers, who believe whatever they do, from investigating criminal cases to catching people whom they believed to be criminals, represents justice. What a lawyer does, according to them, is just a business.

It is the public power behind the public security officers that makes them think that way.

Yet, with the legal system becoming more and more mature in the past three decades, it became common for people to hire lawyers to plead their cases. And it becomes an imperative that lawyers' right must be protected so that their role in defending the accused can function as a countercheck against the possible abuse of power by public security officers and judges.

The new specification is meant to clarify the right of a lawyer in his or her independent involvement in a criminal case. With such a right, the lawyers' independent investigation into the cases involved should be protected. This is a substantial progress in the rule of law as it is meant to check public power with a right justifiably protected by law.

(China Daily 06/03/2008 page8)