Controversial correction
- By Li Li
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Beijing Review, September 3, 2012
Under fire
Yu Jianrong, an expert on China's rural development from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that the re-education-through-labor system has outlived its necessity and legitimacy with the development of rule of law in China. "It should be eliminated immediately," he said.
As an administrative detention system introduced to punish minor offenders in 1957, sentencing people for re-education through labor is carried out by a special committee set under police authorities. Detainees can seek to have their detention repealed through an administrative review of the decision. They can also file an administrative litigation against the committee that ratified their detention and demand a defense attorney.
According to the Ministry of Justice, China had a total of 350 re-education-through-labor centers with 160,000 detainees at the end of 2008, who were mostly convicted of petty theft, fraud, gambling, fighting, prostitution, soliciting and illegal drug use. The ministry's website also shows that the sentence for most detainees was one year, while only a small minority were sentenced for three years. Most correctional centers also offer vocational training where detainees can learn tailoring, carpentry, home appliance repair, cooking, automotives and hair styling. Proceeds from detainees' work in the correctional centers are used to pay them as well as to improve their living and studying conditions.
Yu published A Critical Review of China's Re-education-Through-Labor System, based on 100 petitioners' cases in 2009.
During his research, he discovered that some local governments "ruthlessly put petitioners against them under detention or re-education through labor while petitioners' problems are not timely or properly handled," Yu told China Youth Daily.
Since he was elected a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, Chen Zhonglin, Dean of the Law School of Chongqing University, has been submitting motions demanding reforms on the re-education-through-labor system during every NPC annual session since 2003.
Chen said that a 1980 regulation promulgated by the State Council had enlarged the application scope of re-education through labor and went against its original goals of correcting people's behavior through education and offering job opportunities.
According to The Beijing News, by the end of 2007, a total of 420 NPC deputies had filed motions to reform the re-education-through-labor system.
In December 2007, 69 law professors and attorneys demanded a constitutional review of the re-education-through-labor system in a letter to the NPC Standing Committee. According to Southern Weekly published in Guangzhou, southern Guangdong Province, the letter cites four reasons why this system should be abandoned: It runs against the protection of personal freedom by the Constitution; its regulations contradict superordinate laws, such as the Legislation Law and the Administrative Penalty Law; it is against the principles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which China is a signatory, and its existence undermines the balance of powers between police authorities, prosecutors and judicial organs.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)