AFP: China's Top Judge Grilled on Human Rights, Legal Standards

BEIJING, Mar 12, 2001 -- (Agence France Presse) China's top judge Monday came under fire from legislators over standards in the legal system and human rights.

Xiao Yang, president of the Supreme People's Court, was given a rough ride by delegates from the southern province of Guangdong during a meeting on the sidelines of the annual session of parliament, the National People's Congress.

"Every year the poor quality of officials is listed as an ongoing problem in the work reports of both the judicial and the procuratorate," delegate Li Yongzhong told Xiao.

"Every year it is brought up and we see that nothing changes. This must mean that it is a problem with the system," he said.

Li said that only about 20 percent of China's judicial officials had college educations and he called for all judicial officials to have professional training as lawyers "like it is done in the West".

Another delegate, Chen Lili, complained that a lack of respect for human rights in China's legal system was a growing problem and that the government's 19-month crackdown on the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group was full of "sharp contradictions".

"Deng Xiaoping said we must seize our work with both hands. We have done a pretty good job with the economy, but with politics and in many other social areas we have not done a good job at all," Chen said.

Meanwhile, the vice chairman of Guangdong's People's Congress called for clearer regulations on the establishment of judicial independence.

In his report to the NPC on Saturday, Xiao Yang admitted that protectionism by lower courts had led to a rise in violence against the police and a chronic lack of enforcement of verdicts.

He also said major reforms were needed to the recruitment system which allowed unqualified people to become judges and prevented bad apples being fired.

NPC delegates have never voted against government policy, but in recent years they have showed their displeasure with the judicial system by giving it relatively low approval ratings.

Delegates gave a 74.4 percent approval rating to the Supreme People's Court last year and a 71.2 percent to the Procuratorate.

((c) 2001 Agence France Presse)

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