Nothing and Some More

(Une traduction approximative est disponible: Droits fondamentaux en Chine)

The facts:

A Chinese Blogger was arrested and held in detention for 45 days without charge. His sister, an ordinary citizen with a family and a job in Shanghai went to Beijing, where he is being held, to talk to the police department and to know what he was charged for. No news.

She documented her ordeals on her blog 想念皓子 (I miss my brother Hao.). Another blogger is volunteering her time to do the english translation at Nausicaa Smile.

And Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices runs Free Hao Wu

a's own thoughts on the Chinese legal system:

As Professor He Wei Fang of Beijing University Law School said on his blog Discussing Chinese Legal System with Mr. Guy Sorman: Chinese traditionally looked down upon laws and emphasized the rule of the morals. Confucius himself said that ruling a country by law, the people would obey but would not know what is shame. Ruling it by Moral, people know what is shame and woul discipline themselves. ( “道之以政, 齐之以刑, 民免而无耻; 道之以德, 齐之以礼, 有耻且格。”) And since Confucius dominated Chinese culture for thousands of years, it is not surprising that today, not only there is lack of scholar work and achievement in understanding the basic rights in China, but also among ordinary Chinese people, it is hard to get their support on such issues.

Confucius Rule-By-Moral aside, in practice China also practiced the cruel and harsh punishment advocated by the Fa-Jia, a school of thoughts created about the same time as Confucius, which eventually was adopted by Kingdom Qin and won over the rest of the existing kingdoms and first united China into one dynasty. So there is also this helpless feeling in front of the law traditionalized through thousands of years.

In a's opinion, the disconnection between "legalism" and "confucius school" resulted a very backward understanding of the legal and political systems and how it should work among Government officials, Chinese Scholars and ordinary people. Today, with the influence from the west, people like Wu Hao who are familar with the western culture and rule by the law, would no doubt run into problems with the Chinese political - legal system. Many Chinese people also start to realize the problem, legal experts like Professor He Wei Fang (贺卫方) have done lots of work to improve the legal system in China. But the road is still long and hard.

Professor He recently remarked that the legal system in China has been weakened, not strengthened. Here is a widespread leak of an internal debate on which He made important remarks on the limits of Chinese legal system:

He said, "第四方面是没有独立的司法体系 。我们的司法体系现在正在稳步的下降，司法的地位稳步的下降。现在周永康同 志到最高法院视察工作，肖扬向周永康同志汇报工作，全世界讲法制的国家没有 一个国家敢叫最高法院的首席大法官向警察头子汇报工作，怎么会出现这样的情 况。最近开的是“十六”大，“十六”大政治架构很严重的值得我们关注的趋势 ，越来越不独立，最近党对司法的干预不断地的强化，而不是弱化。"

More or less translated by:
Fourth, there is no independence of the Legal system. Our legal system is steadily going downward, its status is going down. Now when Zhou Yong Kang went to the Supreme Court for a visit, Xiao Yang reported to him. In the whole world, there is no country that is ruled by laws which can ask the chief justice of the supreme court to report to the head of the police department, how can this happen in our country? Recently, we had the 16th representive conference; its political structure is in a very worrisome trend, it is getting less independent, the party's interference with the Legal system only gets more severe, not less.

[In the WSJ China Meeting On Market System Is Leaked on Web has some more translated extracts.]

The issue in China about law and politics is profound, imagine the Europe with the Church's monopoly on Moral and Law before the enlightment! The cultural revolution in many ways demonstrated the hole in the Chinese culture - it is not the first time where people spy and report on each other and send them to jail or death, numerous emperors used the same tactics to rule people. Word-Jail was common for almost every dynasty. Certainly this does not mean that China can not progress into a country that respect different opinions and enjoy a wide range of democracy.

If Europe can do it, China can do it. It is just not an easy task. It takes time and effort and people need to understand how important it is to have a legal system that protects each citizen's rights!