Chinese Law and Politics Blog

Beijing Court Applies Urban Standards to Calculate Compensation Award for Death of Migrant

A Beijing intermediate court overturned a lower court decision and applied urban standards to calculate the death compensation award for a migrant killed in a traffic accident, according to an October 24, 2007 article carried on the People’s Net website.

Families of long-term migrants living in Chinese urban areas, but who still have rural hukou (household registration) status, often receive significantly less compensation than families of corresponding urban hukou holders killed in similar (or the same) accident. The legal basis for this discriminatory treatment lies in a 2003 judicial interpretation by the Supreme People's Court, but it reflects a deeper set of institutional biases that link a range of legal rights and public benefits to individuals' hukou identification rather than their actual place of residence. [For more information, see the topic paper of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China regarding the Chinese hukou system.]

The Beijing decision is an example of at least one court's willingness to flexibly apply relevant legal standards in practice, depart from a bright-line test based on hukou identification, and use higher urban compensation standards to ensure equitable death compensation awards for the families of long-term migrants living in urban areas. 

Zhao Shukai: A Quarter-Century of Peasant Petitions

The China Elections and Governance website has reposted a nice article written by Zhao Shukai, researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council, titled "A Quarter-Century of Peasant Petitions."   The article summarizes his experiences dealing with citizen petitions.

Two points caught my eye. First, Zhao notes that in the 1980s, collective petitions of large groups of petitioners or extreme behavior on the part of petitioners was relatively unknown, but this began to shift in the 1990s, as Chinese petitioners began to adopt much more organized and radicalized tactics to draw official attention to their complaints.

Second, Zhao proposes that institutional reform is necessary to address the root problems associated with citizen petitions.  Specifically, he proposes concentrating authority for responding to citizen petitions in local people’s congresses, and making their oversight of governmental affairs meaningful.

Both of these points have been made as well by other Chinese and foreign scholars working on citizen petitioning in China.  (See, for example, this article, this article, and this conference). But it always bears repeating, particularly by scholars as knowledgeable as Zhao.

Position: Administrative Coordinator, Yale China Law Center

The China Law Center at Yale Law School is seeking applicants for an open position of Administrative Coordinator in the Center’s New Haven office. This position requires performing a wide range of administrative and fiscal responsibilities at The China Law Center, including organizing administrative support for projects, multi-day workshops and conferences in China, managing activities related to visiting Chinese and other scholars and students, and providing research on a variety of topics. The Administrative Coordinator also assists with the administration of the Center’s complex fiscal arrangements.

President Hu Jintao Calls for "Progressively" Equalizing Standards for Rural-Urban Legislative Representation

President Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, called for "progressively" equalizing standards for representation of the rural and urban population in China’s legislative organs, local people's congresses (LPC), in his work report to the 17th Party Congress on October 15.  If implemented, this measure would represent a step toward addressing one source of institutional discrimination against Chinese rural residents.

Under the PRC Election Law of the National People’s Congress and Local People’s Congresses, rural LPC deputies represent four times as many constituents as their urban counterparts. This increases the relative weight of urban interests in Chinese legislative bodies, but leaves migrant and rural interests underrepresented.

Position: Intern at the Congressional-Executive Commission on China

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China is currently soliciting resumes for spring internships (paid) in Washington , D.C. , working on Chinese human rights and rule of law issues.  Interns must be U.S. citizens.

Applications for spring internships must be received by November 1, 2007.  Further details are available below and on the Commission’s Web site at www.cecc.gov.

Interested applicants should send a cover letter and resume to the CECC via e-mail to Judy.wright@mail.house.gov or via fax at (202) 226-3804, attention:  Judy Wright, Director of Administration.

Position: Professional Staff Member, CECC

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is soliciting applications for the position of professional staff member.

The CECC is a joint commission created by Congress in October 2000 to monitor human rights and the development of the rule fo law in China.  It consists of nine Senators, nine members of the House of Representatives, and five senior Administration officials appointed by the President.

Candidate must be U.S. citizens.  Candidates will preferably have a law degree or a Ph.D. or M.A. in political science, history, business, economics or other social sciences, but B.A. candidates with very strong credentials will also receive serious consideration.  For more details, see the full job announcement below.

Position: Intern, Congressional-Executive Commission on China

The Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) is currently soliciting resumes for fall internships (paid) in Washington D.C., working on Chinese human rights and rule of law issues. Interns must be U.S. citizens.

Applications for fall internships must be received by August 1.  Further details are available on the Commission's Web site at www.cecc.gov. 

Interested applicants should send a cover letter and resume to the CECC via e-mail to Judy Wright or via fax at (202) 226-3804, attention: Judy Wright, Director of Administration.

What Do Chinese "Democratic Evaluation" Campaigns Look Like?

    Numerous local Chinese authorities have launched "democratic evaluation" (民主评议) campaigns in recent months. These are aimed at improving the accountability and transparency of local governance by using a degree of citizen participation, under tight Party controls, to evaluate the performance of local officials. (See below for the details of one such campaign, in Shanxi province.)

    Chinese authorities seek to use these measures as a means to address pervasive corruption and abuse in local Chinese governments. But the continued monopoly of local Party influence over these efforts, and the unwillingness of Chinese authorities to create truly independent institutions to monitor Party and government power, raises questions as to their likelihood of success.

Position: Program Officer for Law Programs, Yale-China Association

The Yale-China Association, a non-profit organization that promotes U.S.-China educational exchange, seeks candidates for the position of program officer for law programs to be based either at its headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut, or its China office in Hong Kong.

For more information, see the announcement on the website of the Yale-China Association.

[Language taken from the announcement - see the Yale-China Association website for the full version]

Chinese Authorities Amend Draft Law’s Ban on Media Reporting of "Sudden Incidents"

Chinese authorities have amended the ban on media reporting of "sudden incidents" in the draft "Law on Responding to Sudden Incidents" currently under consideration by the National People’s Congress for the second time. The first version of the proposed law had incited significant public and media criticism in 2006 for its ban on media outlets "independently issuing information" related to "sudden incidents,"such as natural disasters, public health emergencies, and social unrest. 

The new draft law removes the ban on "independently issuing information" regarding sudden incidents, and replaces it with a ban on the dissemination of "false information" regarding sudden incidents, according to a June 24 Xinhua article. This may reflect an effort by Chinese officials to respond to public opposition regarding the original draft language, and some recognition of the positive role that independent media reporting can play in exposing severe governance abuses by local officials. But it also reflects the desire of Chinese central officials to maintain checks over media reporting on sensitive public issues.