Retrial sparks hope of justice reform in China

CHINA: In a shock turnaround that has sparked hope of meaningful reform of the criminal justice system, Chinese authorities have overturned a guilty verdict on the high-profile "barefoot lawyer" activist Chen Guangcheng and ordered a retrial.

Mr Chen was jailed for over four years in August on trumped-up charges of stopping the traffic during a village protest and his case had become the focus of complaints about the shortcomings of the Chinese legal process.

His lawyer said an intermediate court had overturned the verdict in a surprise move and ordered a new trial by Yinan county court in the eastern province of Shandong.

News of Mr Chen's retrial came as human rights groups cautiously welcomed changes to China's death penalty law.

They urged China to reveal how many people it executes every year and to go for further reaching legal reforms.

China's Supreme Court will resume its position as having the final say on death sentences from January 1st, ending the practice of allowing executions on the order of lower courts that legal experts said was open to abuse.

China executes more people than the rest of the world combined, with estimates varying between 5,000 and 12,000 executions by shooting or lethal injection every year. There are 68 capital crimes in China, including offences such as tax fraud.

Amnesty International said broader reform was necessary. "We hope this is a step towards full abolition of the death penalty," said its Asia-Pacific programme director, Purna Sen.

"It is only by abolishing the death penalty that China can guarantee that innocent people will not be put to death."

The death penalty has a lot of popular support in China, but recent months have seen a growing number of cases of miscarriages of justice. There was great public sympathy for a migrant worker who killed his boss and several of his family after the labourer had not been paid his wages for many months. And the case of a butcher who was executed for murdering a waitress who was later found alive struck a chord in China.

China's chief justice said the move would help curb miscarriages of justice.

The Communist Party is well aware that the current expansion of the Chinese economy needs to be underwritten by a functioning legal framework to ensure stability and protect the social fabric. It has made many advances in reforming the political system but there is often a swift and brutal response to any efforts to undermine single-party rule.

In many ways, reforming the legal system in China involves building from the ground up.

During the tumultuous Cultural Revolution, between 1966 and 1976, many intellectuals were attacked, driven out of their jobs and often killed. Lawyers and judges suffered particularly and the legal system still suffers from a lack of experienced advocates.

Many of the lawyers who are writing the new laws that form the framework for China's wide-ranging programme of reform are young and inexperienced, having studied after the Cultural Revolution.

Mr Chen is one such lawyer. Although he studied law, he was not allowed to graduate because of his disability. He became a campaigner for disabled people and farmers' rights. His reputation, and his fate, was sealed when Time magazine voted him one of China's most influential people, after he criticised local cadres for enforcing harsh population control measures, including forced abortions and sterilisations.

There has been speculation that China may be allowing a move on Mr Chen to try and attract the world's attention away from its poor human rights record, as delegates from 48 African states arrived in Beijing for a Sino-African summit. It may yet, however, not go Mr Chen's way.

Lawyers acting for Mr Chen were repeatedly harassed and roughed up when they tried to visit him and his family. Gao Zhisheng, another high profile legal activist who has campaigned for Mr Chen's release, has himself been charged with inciting subversion.

A hearing in July was cancelled at the last minute. Supporters of Chen said they were beaten by police and hired thugs.