Reform of laojiao system

Li Fei, deputy director of the NPC Standing Committee's legislative affairs commission, said on Wednesday that legislators are considering reforms to the re-education-through-labor system, or laojiao, by proposing a new law that is more protective of the legal rights of minor offenders.

Li said drafting the law on education and correction of illegal acts has been listed on the NPC's legislative agenda this year, and has been included in the country's overall judicial reform.

He said legislators will quicken their pace to draft the law, without giving details.

Laojiao, an administrative measure adopted in 1957, empowers the police -- instead of the courts -- to sentence a person guilty of such minor offenses as petty theft and prostitution, to a maximum of four years' incarceration. During that jail time, they receive education and also must do labor work.

The practice has received widespread criticism in recent years as many experts said it contradicts several items in the Constitution and the Criminal Procedure Law, which require that decisions to jail someone go through the judicial system first.

(China Daily March 11, 2010)