Protecting Personal Livelihood

　　Human rights is an important worldwidetopic. On September 12-13, the Sixth Beijing Forumon Human Rights was held with the theme being“Construction of Environment for Sustainable HumanRights Development.” The forum attracted morethan 100 officials and human rights experts from theUnited Nations and 33 countries and regions.

　　The forum was jointly organized by the ChinaSociety for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), the largesthuman rights academic group in China, and the ChinaFoundation for Human Rights Development, a majorcivil group. The annual event was first held in 2008and has grown to become a key platform for internationalhuman rights exchange.

　　“It is extremely important to have meetings likethis where people from different cultures meet andhave discussions about these issues,” said Tom Zwart,a law professor at Utrecht University and Director ofthe Netherlands School of Human Rights Research,who was attending the event for the third time.

　　The China case

　　Dominating the forum’s discussions was China’sefforts to advance human rights by improving therule of law and social welfare, as well as thenecessity for cooperation between differentapproaches to human rights issues adoptedby developing and developed countries.

　　In his speech at the forum’s openingceremony, Cai Mingzhao, Minister of the InformationOffice of the State Council, saidthat the Chinese Government has laidgreat emphasis on improving people’sliving conditions and the proportionof population in poverty in Chinadecreased from 84 percent in 1980 to13 percent in 2012.

　　He revealed that, by the end of lastyear, 790 million people in China participatedin at least one basic endowmentinsurance scheme and the basicmedical insurance achieved universalcoverage.

　　Kate Westgarth, former Director of the ChineseAffairs Department of the Foreign and CommonwealthOffice of Britain, said that China’s greatestachievement in advancing human rights has been thenumber of people that it has lifted out of poverty. Sheadded that such a progress is often underestimatedin the West due to the fact that China does not conformto Western norms.

　　“I don’t think that China’s results [in improvingits human rights] can be replicated in other countries,but it is a very interesting example of how theWestern world’s attitudes are not the only ones andit stands as an example for developing countries of adifferent way of pursuing things,” Westgarth said.

　　China has formulated two sessions of nationalhuman rights action plans. The first onewas implemented on schedule between 2009and 2010, and all goals in the plan have beenachieved. Now, the second plan for 2012-15 isbeing put into practice.

　　An annual report on China’s human rightsconditions by the CSHRS released in Augustshowed that more and more Chinese peoplebecame aware of human rights protectionand the social atmosphere is increasinglyfavorable.

　　Rule of law

　　Luo Haocai, President of the CSHRS, said atthe forum that the protection of human rightswithout rule of law is impossible.

　　China has been vigorously upgradingits legal framework in responseto social development. In 2013 alone,amended laws directly involving theprotection of human rights, includingthe Criminal Procedure Law, theCivil Procedure Law, the Law on theProtection of the Rights and Interestsof the Elderly and the Labor ContractLaw, have come into effect.

　　In the first half of thisyear, theNational People’s Congress (NPC),China’s top legislature, also widelysolicited public opinions for a draftamendment to the Law on theProtection of Consumer Rights andInterests. Meanwhile, an amendmentto the Administrative Procedural Law,which sets the basic criterion for“administrative litigations,” has beenincluded in the NPC’s legislative agenda in 2013.

　　“I am always amazed that China developed acomplete legal system in 40 years’ time,” said Zwart,who has studied China’s human rights situation for10 years. “It took European nations centuries. Chinahas a wonderfully working proper legal system. I thinkstrongly of all the initiatives that have been taken toallow citizens to participate in governance.”

　　Luo also said in his speech that the re-educationthrough labor system, an administrative detentionsystem to punish minor offenders that has becomeincreasingly controversial, would be ceased within theyear. He added that there are planned reforms of thepetition system, which is also criticized by some forperceived faults in its implementation.

　　In February 2011, the NPC Standing Committeeapproved Amendment VIII to the Criminal Law, whichremoves the death penalty for 13 economic and nonviolentcrimes, reducing the death penalty chargesby nearly one fifth. The amendment also adoptedrestrictive regulations relating to the application ofthe death penalty to offenders aged 75 or above atthe time of the trial.

　　Before that, the Supreme People’s CourtandSupreme People’s Procuratorate jointly issued regulationsin June 2010, requiring more stringent standardson the review and judgment of evidence involved indeath penalty cases. The amended Criminal ProcedureLaw requires that all retrials for death penaltycases must be held publicly and that supervision overdeath sentence retrials be tightened.

　　“A fundamental principle of the rule oflaw is theseparation of powers so as to avoid their concentration,which, as experience shows, often leadsto abuses of power,” said Christophe Peschoux, anofficial from the office of the UN Commissioner forHuman Rights, while making a speech at the forum.

　　At the beginning of the year, China launched anew round of reform to transform governmentalfunctions. This reform puts an emphasis on theregulation of governmental power, the decentralizationof power and how it is granted to the market andsociety. Scrapping excess administrative examinationand approval procedures is the central point of thereform.

　　Keeping cyberspace clean

　　Combating false rumors online while not violatingpeople’s freedom of speech was a hot topic at theforum.

　　“People have the right to gather information andexpress their opinions and they also have the rightto protect their reputation and privacy. So a balancehas to be found,” said Zwart. He admitted thatstriking such a balance is no easy task for governmentdecision-makers and he agreed that there is nouniform way to accomplish this balance as nationalconditions vary.

　　“These boundary discussions on what you canallow people to say and what should be prohibited [onthe Internet] will continue forever,” he said.As part of China’s campaign to crack down onorganized online misinformation spreading, peoplewho post defamatory comments online will face up tothree years in prison if their statements are widely repostedand shared, according to a legal interpretationjointly released by the Supreme People’s Court andthe Supreme People’s Procuratorate on September 9.The document stipulates that people will facedefamation charges if false rumors they post onlineare viewed by more than 5,000 Internet users or repostedmore than 500 times.

　　“A responsible society cannot allow people on theInternet to spread lies about other people,” Westgarthsaid. “The Internet is one of the places whereindividuals’ rights have to be balanced with the rightsof society in order to exist peacefully and harmoniously.”