A newly-released confidential letter by a UN Special Rapporteur documents the disbarment of human rights lawyers in China and the tightening ideological control over lawyers and law firms. The UN expert denounces disappearances, closed-door trials, harassment of relatives, travel bans, and other abuses targeting human rights lawyers.
On 14 February 2024, the UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Margaret Satterthwaite, sent a letter to the government of the People’s Republic of China on patterns of human rights violations affecting human rights lawyers inside the country.
In the 12-pages letter, only made public on 14 April after a two-months confidential period, the UN expert examined two administrative measures on lawyers’ practice and on law firms, determining they are ‘not in line with international standards related to the right to fair trial, and may in their application, limit the functions of lawyers in China by restricting both their work and their freedoms.’
The 2016-amended Administrative Measures for the Practice of Law by Lawyers lists a range of prohibited behaviours for lawyers, including ‘instigating sit-ins, holding banners, shouting slogans, expressing solidarity’ as well as ‘using the Internet or media to provoke dissatisfaction with the [Chinese Communist] Party (CCP) or the government’, or defending ‘evil cults’ (a term employed to refer to Falun Gong practitioners). The 2018-amended Measures on the Administration of Law Firms allows for the revocation of the license of law firms if they do not dismiss or take action to sanction lawyers engaging in these behaviours. Both measures further tighten ideological control over the legal profession, stipulating that ‘lawyers shall have supporting the leadership of the CCP and supporting the socialist rule of law as basic requirements for practice.’
The Special Rapporteur also inquired into the annual inspection system of lawyers by law firms under the oversight of the Ministry of Justice, taking place between March and May each year.
In her letter, the UN expert refers to 12 letters sent to the government on individual cases since 2018, including Li Yuhan, Ding Jiaxi, Xu Zhiyong and Qin Yongpei, Tang Jitian, Chang Weiping, and Yu Wensheng.
In letter to China, UN expert condemns targeting of human rights lawyers
