Zhou Qiang, the top Chinese judicial official, gave an uncommon reprimand of justices around China at a conference recently, demanding that they adhere to due process and stop peremptorily expelling lawyers from the courtroom.
It is unusual for someone like Zhou Qiang, a dyed-in-the-wool Party cadre whose job it is to run the judicial system as an obedient organ of the regime and to openly criticize how judges do business in China.
“To be frank, I’m very baffled at why judges always expel lawyers from the court,” he said, referring to a practice that seems to have gained currency over the last year or so. There have been a number of high-profile cases where judges refuse to allow lawyers to make a defense for their clients, and when the lawyers refuse to be silent, are simply booted from the court.
“If they’ve violated the court rules, you can adjourn the court and make public the recording of the trial. The judges should indeed improve their trial ability and change their mindset,” Zhou said at a national high court conference held in Beijing on Jan. 22. A version of his remarks was carried by People’s Daily, the Party mouthpeice.
Many trials have become “a mere formality,” Zhou said, because judges have collaborated with prosecutors and figured out how a trial and sentence will be disposed of before it has even begun.
