Assault on lawyer highlights need to regulate power of court staff

A gavel in a court. [Photo/IC]

Wu Liangshu, a lawyer in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, complained online that he was beaten up by police at the court office when he applied to register a lawsuit at the court in Qingxiu zone, Nanning city. The court told a different story and Wu asked them to publish the video record to show who's version of the incident was right. Sichuan Online comments:

No video record has been released, but Wu published a photo in which his trousers were almost totally destroyed. The court responded that its staff were "trying to search him" because they suspected he was making a sound recording.

Such a response is contradictory and shows the court employees are not professional. The destroyed trousers show Wu suffered from violence, yet the court denied that, without listing any evidence. This is detrimental to their reputation.

The court has no power to have lawyers searched except during a trial, so when the court staff tried to have Wu searched they broke the law.

Worse, they said they searched the lawyer because they feared he might make a sound recording of the whole process. The law forbids lawyers and other people from making live broadcasts of trials, but it does not forbid people making sound or video records. So the court staff had no right to stop or search him.

Let's compare what Wu said. He said when he was asking the court staff for a receipt for his legal materials, they suspected he was recording their "improper behavior" so they wanted to search him.

That sounds more reasonable. Actually, what arouses our interest more is, what "improper deeds" were the court personnel committing that they had to search the lawyer and destroy any possible record?

The top leadership has been promoting the rule of law, and the law allows citizens to supervise government and judicial departments. Yet in practice many local officials take all kinds of measures to prevent them from supervising power.

It is time for higher authorities to investigate so as to make clear what happened, or the rule of law will be illusive.