The China Lawyer Human Rights Concern Group published a press release yesterday saying that ……
The Beijing Justice Bureau on 9 July released on its official website the first batch of Beijing law firms and lawyers being suspended from practice http://www.bjsf.gov.cn/sy/sytztg/200907/t20090709_545273.html
There were in total of 53 lawyers whose practice licenses were invalidated, including human rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong (???) who actively participated in human rights cases. About 20 human rights lawyers had not yet passed their annual “assessment and registration”, and there might be more lawyers being suspended from practice in the near future.
The press release goes on to say…
China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group protest against the Beijing Justice Bureau for using this means to suppress human rights lawyers and to deprive their right to legal practice. We call on more attention and support for the human rights lawyers in China.
According to the notice of Beijing Justice Bureau, lawyers belonging to the Beijing Globe Law Firm including Jiang Tianyong, Li Xiongbing (???), Li Heping (???), Li Chunfu (???) and Wang Yajun (???), were unable to pass the annual “assessment and registration” and their practice licenses were as a result invalidated. The name of Lawyer Jiang Tianyong was listed at the same time in the list of “passed in assessment and not allowed to be re-registered” and the list of “failure in assessment and not allowed to be re-registered”. It indicated that the information of the Bureau was in a state of chaos. The remaining four lawyers were in the list of “failure in assessment and not allowed to be re-registered”.
Every year at the end of May, lawyers in China had to pass the annual “assessment and registration” in order to continue their practice, otherwise they could not be involved in any cases as a lawyer thereafter. They had to stop their involvement in any cases as a lawyer if they failed the annual “assessment and registration”, even if they were consigned to any cases before the annual “assessment and registration”. The system of annual “assessment and registration” thus totally deprived lawyers’ right to practice. Moreover, there was no transparency to reveal any criteria of this system and how it worked. As a result, it is doubtful whether the authorities would use the system to take revenge against those lawyers who handled “politically sensitive” cases.
The above mentioned five lawyers were involved in human rights work and had undertaken human rights cases for a long period of time. For instance, Jiang Tianyong handled HIV/AIDS patient cases, Shanxi brick kiln slave labour cases, campaign for direct election of the Beijing Lawyers Association, and Falun Gong cases. He had been under close surveillance by the public security since early June. His personal freedom was restricted and later he was only allowed to stay in his house, as if he was put under house arrest. The state security agents even threatened him of the safety of his family members. Now the authorities suspended his practice license without valid reason. These were traces of suppression of Lawyer Jiang.
The Justice Bureau said that lawyers could only continue their practice if they passed the annual “assessment”. We demand that the Justice Bureau should explain openly why there was such a list of lawyers who “passed the assessment but were not allowed to be re-registered.” We also demand that the Justice Bureau should clearly explain why the lawyers’ legal practice licenses were invalidated and the criteria of the annual “assessment and registration”. As it was said the Justice Bureau’s website this was only the first batch of lawyers whose licenses were invalidated, we were worried that other human rights lawyers might also face similar suppression in the near future. We call on the authorities to immediately stop the suppression against human rights lawyers and to ensure the lawyers’ right to practice.
