From “Double-filing” to “Multi-filing,” the Many Ways that the Communist Regime Attempts to Block Lawyers from Representing Falun Gong Practitioners

(Minghui.org) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never stopped its attempt to frame and sentence Falun Gong practitioners ever since it launched a nationwide campaign against the peaceful spiritual discipline in July 1999. In the early years of the persecution, not many people, including the targeted practitioners’ own family members, dared to speak up for them, fearing retaliation by the authorities. 

But thanks to practitioners’ persistent efforts in raising awareness about the persecution, more and more people, including human rights lawyers, have stood up to defend them in both the court of public opinion and the court of law. 

“Double-filing”

In order to prevent human rights lawyers from representing and defending Falun Gong practitioners, the police, the procuratorates, the courts, and detention facilities across the country have worked hand in glove to throw up roadblocks by imposing unlawful restrictions on the lawyers. One of the main restrictions was dubbed “double filing,” meaning that a lawyer would not be allowed to meet with his practitioner-client, review her case documents, or appear in court with her unless he has filed with 1) the judicial bureau in the jurisdiction where the case is being prosecuted, and 2) the judicial bureau in the jurisdiction where the lawyer’s law firm is located.

Usually the lawyer is from a different jurisdiction (which could be a different district in the same city, a different city in the same province, or a totally different province), which is why two judicial bureaus are involved (hence, “double filing”). 

Under normal circumstances, defense lawyers do not need to seek permission to represent a client from any agency in either the private or the public sectors. The “double filing” requirement is nowhere to be found in relevant laws, including the Lawyers Law, Criminal Procedure Law, administrative regulations of the State Council or the Ministry of Justice, or relevant legal interpretations by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and Supreme People’s Court.

Normally as long as lawyers have established a formal attorney-client relationship (meaning, signing a contract with their clients), they’re good to go. In non-Falun Gong cases, that still holds. However, when it comes to Falun Gong cases, rights lawyers have met with unlawful and unreasonable requirements such as the “double filing.”

Some lawyers were retaliated against or even lost their professional licenses when they refused to cooperate with the illegal “double filing” requirement. Worth noting is the fact that judicial bureaus at various government levels across China do not have any power to issue arrest warrants, file indictments, or issue criminal judgments against any suspect. In other words, judicial bureaus do not play any role in the prosecution of criminal cases. They are simply the administrative arm of the judicial system in China. One of their main responsibilities is reviewing and issuing lawyers’ professional licenses. Some judicial bureaus thus abused their power to revoke the licenses of human rights lawyers who dared to defend Falun Gong practitioners.

According to the Chinese Legislative Law, anything that involves derogation of citizens’ rights and interests, increases their civic obligations, and expands governmental powers must be based on the provisions of law and administrative regulations; even the Ministry of Justice has no authority in arbitrarily setting such restrictions as “double-filing.” 

But for judicial bureaus across China, instead of raising concerns about the illegal “double filing” requirement that severely hinder defense lawyers’ rights in Falun Gong cases, they complied with the police, the procuratorate, and the courts in blocking the lawyers from representing Falun Gong practitioners. 

As a matter of fact, even if some lawyers went through the “double-filing,” they were still unable to meet with their clients or review their case documents. Many judicial bureaus imposed further restrictions after lawyers had already filed with them. In Jilin Province, a secret document, No. [2020] 226, was issued in 2020 to demand professional lawyers to secure letters from their local judicial bureaus to show that they did not practice Falun Gong themselves, before they would be allowed to represent Falun Gong practitioners in the province. 

“Multi-Filing”

In recent months, some detention centers in Jilin Province began to impose even more cumbersome restrictions on human rights lawyers before they were allowed to visit their practitioner-clients. 

Filing with two judicial bureaus (one in the lawyer’s own jurisdiction and another in the jurisdiction where the case is being prosecuted) was no longer enough. These Jilin detention centers demanded that the lawyers obtain permission from multiple agencies in the two concerned jurisdictions, including bar associations, judicial bureaus, and courts. 

The following image was put together based on insider information. It concerned a Falun Gong case that was in the trial stage of the prosecution process. The defense lawyer was required to fill out the form and secure permission from multiple agencies (which must also stamp their seals, the red circles on the form) before he was allowed to meet with his client at the detention center.

The top half of the form is about the basic information of the case (such as name of defendant, what charges she faced, lawyer’s name, the lawyer’s contact information, etc.). The bottom half of the form has two panels. The panel on the left-hand side is for three seals to be obtained from the lawyer’s law firm, the bar association overseeing his law firm, and the judicial bureau overseeing his law firm. The panel on the right-hand side has spaces for three additional seals to be obtained from the jurisdiction where the case was being prosecuted, including the court, the bar association, and the juridical bureau. 

We can only imagine how much effort the lawyer has to go through to obtain all those seals, not to mention that any of those agencies (in both the private and public sectors) may purposefully decline permission.

Note also that the form was to be filled out after the case was already resting with the court. And six seals had to be obtained. The “Double filing” in the early years have thus become “Sextuple Filing.” 

What if the practitioner’s case was still with the police or with the procuratorate? Then both agencies would also need to “sign off” and stamp seals on the form. The “Sextuple Filing” would then become “Octuple Filing.”

According to an insider, such “multi-filing” demands came from an order from the Jilin Province Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), an extra-judiciary agency tasked with overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong.

As ridiculous as it sounds, the multi-filing restrictions are aimed at deterring human rights lawyers from defending Falun Gong practitioners’ right to freedom of belief.