Daniel Arthur Laprès Avocat au Barreau de Paris Barrister & Solicitor (Nova Scotia) posts to China Law List this interesting legal cultural snippet about China.
I am wondering whether anyone else on the list has watched this Chinese TV series (???, in this case a 40-part story?- a romanticized view from the inside of a prosecutor’s office’s work in Jiangdong, a former district of the sub-provincial city of Ningbo.
As to its realism, and based on what friends who work in prosecutors’ offices in China tell me, it’s situated somewhere between “Law and Order” and “Ally McBeal”, and closer to the latter!
Still, what I find interesting is that it presents the prosecutor’s office’s work in a much more mundane context than what is most often talked about, i.e. common crimes rather than the politically charged prosecutions of big-time leaders or political dissidents, etc. After all, even in China, run-of-the-mill crimes do have to be treated.
A particular aspect that intrigues me is how the rights of the defense are presented (e.g. access to lawyers, rights of cross-examination, right not to self-incriminate). Sometimes, you would almost think that you were in a Western courtroom.
In the end, will the Chinese public not begin to believe that they do actually enjoy such rights?
What consequences might that have on the Chinese public’s willingness to accept procedural outrages in high-profile cases?
Why would the CCP even allow such a romanticized version of procedural rights to be broadcasted?
