On November 6, 2017, the Legislative Affairs Commission of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress released a draft National Supervision Law that spells out the powers of a new anti-corruption body, the National Supervision Committee. The new law, which is expected to take effect in March 2018, has come under criticism over the past week — with some experts in China and beyond arguing that the law risks replacing an abusive shuanggui system — which for many years has invited rampant abuse of suspects under secret detention — with a new liuzhi system that still offers, some say, no rights protection for detainees.
In the past two days, a number of users on the Weibo social media platform in China have posted a story attributed to well-known legal expert and political commentator Chen Jieren (陈杰人), in which he alleges that he was pressured by authorities to criticizing the draft National Supervision Law.
The following Weibo post by “Media Person Lin Guoqiang” (媒体人林-国-强), which shares the Chen Jieren passage, was deleted from the platform at 3:27PM today, Beijing time, one day after it was posted.

Chen Jieren: Today a rather high-level official came to urge me not to keep raising questions about the legislating of the National Supervision Law. He said I needed to trust the Party’s Central Committee, and that I shouldn’t engage in improper discussion [of Party policies]. I told him that under the principles of the current draft National Supervision Law, from today on, would make it impossible for lawyers to become involved at any point in the investigation phase in cases of anti-corruption, and there was no way to protect the rights of suspects. The group facing the greatest potential harm in this was officials, I said. We are speaking for officials, but officials are still waylaying us . . .
陈杰人:今天一位较高级别官员劝我,不要再掺和监察法的立法质疑,他说,要相信中央,不要妄议。我告诉他,以现有监察法草案立下的规则,今后,反腐反渎领域的案件,侦查阶段都无法有律师介入,嫌疑人权利毫无保障,这样做,最大的潜在受害人群体就是官员。我们为官员说话,官员还在制止,不知道中国官…全文: http://m.weibo.cn/5231558902/4173648367981061 ​


CMP Staff

The China Media Project

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