[March 8rd, 2012] Voices & Votes – Law and Justice

Host: Zou Yue

Guest speakers:

- He Jiahong, a Law professor from Renmin University

- Luka Lu, a partner in the Capital Associates law firm

- Stephanie Balme, a Professor at Sciences Po Paris and a visiting professor at Tsinghua University

- Edward Lehman, the managing director of the Lehman, Lee & Xu law firm

- Professor Wang Lei from Peking University

NPC amends Criminal Procedure Law

 

 

 

Part 1: Changes to China’s Criminal Procedure Law

Chinese law as it stands does not include the protection of human rights. It focuses more on cracking down on crimes. In the past, that lack of precision to the law sometimes led to controversial detainments. But hopefully, this will soon be something of the past. A draft amendment to the Criminal Procedural Law is being reviewed by the country’s lawmakers and should be approved at the end of the NPC annual plenary session. It includes an entire section on the respect and protection of human rights. This is no small change. These amendments apply to the entire Criminal law and change the distribution of power between the police force and the judicial system.

Part 2: Law surrounding the detention of criminal suspects

In the first part of our show, we’ve been looking at changes to China’s Criminal Procedure Law. But there’s one issue that deserves deeper analysis. That is the law surrounding the detention of criminal suspects.

Part 3: Media Watch

Now comes the time for our daily look across the Internet, to see what netizens and other media have to say about the on-going NPC and CPPCC sessions. Wu Haojun joins us for today’s "Media Watch".

Part 4: Changes to China’s electoral law

The NPC has submitted a draft for review that concerns the election of deputies for the next session. The amendment to the Electoral Law calls for the number of deputies to be calculated in proportion with the population both in rural and urban areas equally for the first time. This re-allocation would grant more equal rights to different people, different regions and different ethnic groups.