CHINA-LAW: CHINA'S SUPREME COURT DELETES ALL JUDGEMENTS ON CASES RELATED TO ENDANGERING STATE SECURITY

The Human Rights Journal Dui Hua on July 26 reported that all judgments and judicial decisions in cases for endangering state security (ESS), including those for reduction of sentences, have been purged from the Supreme People's Court (SPC) online judgment website China Judgements Online (CJO, 中国裁判文书网). It said that in early 2021, the built-in crimes filter on CJO yielded over 640 ESS judgments and rulings, but the whole category of ESS judgments covering Articles 102-113 of the Criminal Law disappeared in mid-July. At the time of this posting, using the CJO’s search feature to look for ESS cases, such as inciting subversion of state power, not a single result is returned even though the category has returned to the filters. Stating that the posting of judgments of sensitive cases has always been arbitrary, Dui Hua said the number of trials for ESS cases is a closely guarded secret. In the annual work reports delivered by the SPC and Supreme People’s Procuratorate to the National People’s Congress, the number of ESS prosecutions and trials has been lumped together under the category of “Others” with crimes such as violation of duty by military personnel. In provincial court reports, ESS is one of the most serious organized crimes together with organized gangs, yet information is rarely given. Judgments for splittism and inciting splittism, crimes used almost exclusively against ethnic minorities, have always been selectively posted. Over the past four years, Dui Hua has been unable to find ESS cases in Xinjiang from CJO, despite the region making up the majority of the ESS cases nationwide. That said, intermediate people’s courts in Sichuan published no fewer than 13 inciting splittism judgments between August and December 2020. All the defendants were Tibetans.







Subscribe to Newswire | Site Map | Email Us
Centre for China Analysis and Strategy, A-50, Second Floor, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi-110057
Tel: 011 41017353
Email: office@ccasindia.org