The Standing Committee of the CCP's National People's Congress recently reviewed a draft amendment to the Lawyers Law. The draft adds language requiring that legal practice “adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” and that law firms strengthen Party-building work. Human-rights lawyers interviewed say the authorities are simply putting into writing what has already been practiced in recent years, further advancing the “Party-ification” of the legal profession. One lawyer said bluntly that this move completely severs any path by which China might move gradually toward constitutional government through the rule of law, and warned that a new political campaign targeting the legal profession may be on its way.
According to the officially released draft amendment to the Lawyers Law, the most striking addition is the requirement that “legal practice adhere to the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party,” along with support for CCP leadership and for “socialist rule of law.” The draft also requires law firms to establish CCP organizations and strengthen Party-building.
Lawyers: Tightening Party Control Over the Legal Profession Is the CCP's Open Strategy
The CCP has already required, in the past, that legal practice “uphold Party leadership” and “strengthen Party-building.” Now this is simply being elevated into law. A mainland lawyer using the pseudonym Tie Ming told The Epoch Times that authorities have, for years, used Party-building as a pretext to bring lawyers under Party control, and that this move simply puts existing practice into written form.
Tie Ming said that the Lawyers Law should, by rights, be a law protecting lawyers' rights, but by attaching this political precondition, the CCP's lawmaking becomes mere theater -- in reality, it suppresses lawyers willing to work on behalf of ordinary citizens' rights. Going forward, lawyers devoted to human-rights work will clearly become even greater targets of official scrutiny.
Mainland lawyer Yang Hui (a pseudonym) told The Epoch Times that the CCP's dictatorship has always been consistent, and that nothing fundamental has changed between the past and the present. Back in the 2000s there was still some pretense of subtlety -- it was not stated so explicitly that lawyers must uphold Communist Party leadership, and there was even occasional talk of judicial independence. But since Xi Jinping came to power, officials have openly stated that people must be on guard against what they call the Western notion of judicial independence.
“In past years, during the process of a lawyer's apprenticeship and formal licensing, mention was already being made of upholding Communist Party leadership. Now it has been elevated directly into law, which effectively places the Party directly above the law itself.”
Wu Shaoping, head of the Overseas Human Rights Lawyers Group, told The Epoch Times that CCP leader Xi Jinping is strengthening his own personal dictatorship by strengthening the Party's one-party dictatorship. That is why, in recent years, whenever the CCP drafts or amends laws, it places the Party's control and leadership over the law ahead of everything else in the entire legal text.
Wu Shaoping said the CCP previously controlled lawyers through the Measures for the Administration of Lawyers. In the past, while amending those measures, the authorities also tried to control law firms by having them establish Party branches -- so this is simply their open strategy playing out again.
“When I was still in China, our law firm initially had only two Party members, and the authorities above still demanded that we establish a Party branch. I opposed it, and at the time it wasn't established. Later, because new lawyers joined who happened to be Party members, we reached the threshold of three people. Under CCP requirements, once you have three Party members, the firm must establish a Party branch,” he said.
Wu Shaoping said that under the CCP's one-party control, China's legal profession has long since become a critically important link in judicial corruption. “It is often precisely these Party-member lawyers who actively engage in acting as judicial fixers, because these people are steeped in Party spirit, lack basic humanity, and are utterly obsessed with power worship.”
Wu Shaoping believes that this amendment to the Lawyers Law effectively ends the role of lawyers as free professionals in society. “As a lawyer, you must now practice 'socialist rule of law.' So-called 'socialist rule of law' is a political attribute, and by using that language, it excludes the professional attribute of lawyers altogether.”
Analysis: China's Lawyers Association Has Become the CCP's Enforcer Against Lawyers
The day before yesterday, the All China Lawyers Association held a meeting to declare its position on the draft Lawyers Law, firmly voicing support for requiring that legal practice uphold CCP leadership and for writing CCP leadership into law. The association also said that the legal profession must stay closely aligned with the Xi-led central leadership, and that it would further deepen Party-building work within the legal industry.
Regarding the Lawyers Association's declaration of loyalty, Tie Ming believes it resembles a standard ritual from the Mao era -- “It's the standard formula: everyone has to pledge loyalty to the Party's supreme leader.”
Wu Shaoping said that in normal countries, bar associations are self-governing bodies within the profession, but China's Lawyers Association is itself an appendage of the CCP -- the Party's enforcer against lawyers.
He believes that once the CCP passes the newly revised Lawyers Law, it will likely use the judicial bureaus and the Lawyers Association to launch a political campaign across the legal profession to establish Party branches -- possibly making it mandatory. If a firm lacks enough members, it will simply require lawyers to join the Party organization, and then establish a Party branch.
Analysis: Without Returning Power to the People, the CCP Will Always Treat Law as Merely a Tool
Since Xi Jinping came to power, control over lawyers has only continued to tighten. Ten years ago, human-rights lawyers were fairly active on the mainland, but most were purged, culminating in the mass roundup of lawyers known as the “709 incident.”
Wu Shaoping said the 709 lawyers were, for the most part, human-rights lawyers -- but to the CCP, human rights are merely propaganda used to lure people with an illusory promise, while what matters most to the regime is political stability. In fact, when lawyers actively defend the dignity of the law, that, to some degree, actually helps stabilize CCP rule. Yet the CCP regarded them instead as opposing the Party.
Wu Shaoping said that by using legislation this way, the CCP has effectively and completely severed the path by which China's rule of law might gradually advance toward constitutional government. “The path by which legal professionals hoped to change Chinese society through the rule of law, to truly turn Chinese society into a nation governed by law, no longer exists.”
Tie Ming said that as long as power is not returned to the people, the CCP's true nature will always treat the law as a mere tool -- used to restrain the ruled and provide every convenience to the rulers, allowing them to continue lording it over the people. “This line has never changed -- sometimes it is done openly, sometimes covertly.”
Yang Hui said that this episode also reveals the CCP's own sense of crisis. In recent years, as more people travel abroad and see what the free world actually looks like, they see the gap for themselves. Many lawyers and ordinary citizens, even though they know the CCP's laws are a sham, still choose to treat them as real and demand that the authorities act according to law -- and this poses a challenge to the CCP. “It feels that its monolithic ideology and its position of leadership are being questioned by the public, including questioning from within its own ranks, and it is facing exactly this kind of crisis.”
“It has now gone from once issuing internal directives to openly tearing off the mask in front of the entire nation and the entire world, pushing this kind of open, undisguised dictatorship -- exposing a face that is both vicious and utterly out of options,” he said.