China Focus: China encourages lawyers to deal with public complaints

Chinese lawyers are encouraged to help resolve public complaints voiced outside the legal channel in order that they "play a bigger role in maintaining social harmony and stability," according to a statement on Monday.

Lawyers' participation is key to helping establish a legal and legitimate complaint system, said the statement released by the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

Lawyers can play a positive role in dissolving disputes and safeguarding people's rights, it said. Judicial authorities and lawyers' associations should create conditions for lawyers to deal with complaints, which complements the government role.

In China, some people, mostly underprivileged, file complaints to the government instead of filing lawsuits or using other legal ways. Others file complaints after they are treated unfairly in legal cases.

Such complaints are called "letters and visits", with bureaus at different levels dealing with these complaints.

Many cases take time to finish and require the citizen to lodge several complaints before seeing results, adding huge pressure on the families who file complaints and wasting judicial resources.

Such a culture has been seen as far back as feudal China, when people would kneel down in front of the emperor or local officials to file complaints in absence of efficient law enforcement.

The statement said lawyers' associations should designate lawyers to offer legal assistance to those unsatisfied with the results given by judicial authorities.

"Lawyers should help them correctly understand judicial adjudicative documents, and protect their rights and interests in line with the law," the statement said, adding lawyers' participation should be on voluntary and equal basis, and should not charge money.

Lawyers should assess the cases using legal knowledge and experience, and they should also channel public sentiment, offer legal advice and help those with financial difficulty apply for assistance, so that "complaints will be handled in a legal and fair way," it said.

Bureaus in charge of letters and visits should provide places for lawyers and ensure lawyers' safety, it said, adding the government should offer support for lawyers to inspect legal documents and inquire case details, carefully consider their suggestions and offer feedbacks.

"Wrongful cases should be timely handled" in legal ways, the statement said.

It also stressed that lawyers should abide by the law and follow professional ethics and work principles; they should not disclose information relating to the cases, and should not hype up "sensitive and complex" cases.

They are not allowed to "support, incite and organize" others to raise trouble illegally, it said.

"Lawyers violating discipline will lose the qualification of complaints handling and be punished according to laws and regulations," the statement said.

Nine lawyers were taken under coercive measures earlier this year, after they used Beijing Fengrui law firm as a platform to provoke trouble and disturb social order.

They were suspected of disrupting public order and seeking profits by illegally hiring protesters and swaying court decisions in the name of "defending justice and public interests." Endi