China Real Time ReportToday, 10:10
By Stanley Lubman
A “nail house” sits in the middle of a road under construction in Nanning, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, April 10, 2015. According to local media, the owner of the house didn’t reach an agreement with the local authorities about compensation for the demolition.
Chinese society is rife with contradictions. One of the most longstanding and persistent is the coexistence of the movement toward legal reform with the use of extra-legal repression to maintain social stability.
China’s legal system is slowly changing. Statements by senior prosecutors and judges about the correction of erroneous court decisions, along with new rules to control judicial corruption and dishonesty, are signs of progress. Judicial reform is moving ahead – but very slowly, within limits and as long as it does not threaten Party control.
On the legal reform front, the courts have been focusing on handling cases that do not involve politically sensitive issues in order to build public confidence in the judicial system. Steps are being taken to prevent interference with fairness in judging cases and to shift responsibility to provincial levels for judges’ salaries and job assignments.
China’s state-run media reported recently that prosecutors have turned their focus to 1,800 unresolved cases in which the evidence is insufficient or doubtful: The country’s deputy chief procurator says “we would rather not blame instead of making a wrongful judgment.” A vice president of the Supreme People’s Court said that because Chinese courts have announced the innocence of more than 1,600 defendants during the last two years due to a shortage of evidence, this has “improved public confidence in the justice system.” A Court “guideline” provides that judges who “accept bribes, forge evidence or hide key information” will be held responsible.
Outside the courts, however, the Party-state continues to silence and punish anyone identified as a threat to stability. The use of extra-legal soft repression, a technique of authoritarian power that echoes the Maoist era, has recently been analyzed by two China scholars, Yanhua Deng of the Southwestern University of Finance and Economics and Kevin O’Brien of the University of California, Berkeley. Based on a sample of cases reported in the Chinese press from 2010 to 2013, the authors describe the methods used to organize social pressure, including the mobilization of government employees to suppress protest and inhibit speech.
One prominent example is the oxymoron of “harmonious demolition,” which refers to removal by local governments of houses targeted for sale to developers. When local governments decide to expropriate land occupied by residents, they must obtain their agreement, but the result is often far from harmonious.
As the authors detail, if local authorities perceive that residents oppose a proposed taking of the land on which they live, they often prefer to use flexible extra-legal coercion to force residents’ surrender rather than more formal and public means that might attract media attention. Many times, they arrange a “demolition headquarters” in the county or township involved. Such ad hoc offices are staffed by personnel from local government work units—bureaus, hospitals, schools and, sometimes, state-owned or large collective enterprises. Staff whose relatives live in houses selected for demolition are obvious potential recruits due to the opportunity for the government to use those family ties as leverage, Deng and O’Brien note.
When staff members are reluctant to participate in the conflict, local officials may use public shaming to compel their cooperation. If staff fail to convince residents to surrender, they could be fined or threatened with loss of their year-end bonuses or even loss of their jobs. Confronted by such threats, some staff members may conclude that they have no choice but to pressure their relatives to sign a demolition agreement, while others may quit their jobs, the authors write.
Despite the fact that the use of force to compel residents to agree to land takings has been declared illegal by China’s State Council, or Cabinet, it does continue. The effects of soft repression can be demoralizing; it can disrupt families and leave those subjected to it feeling helpless and disillusioned.
Although local government land grabs are one of the most prominent examples of soft repression, it is also aimed at other targetssuch as women who challenge the one-child policy and friends and associates of political and social activists.
O’Brien and Deng view this kind of authoritarianism to be as oppressive as its Maoist predecessor. However, they also conclude it “is not a formula for long-term success, and instead is a sign of over-reach, desperation and incentives gone amok.”
Once again, despite some promise of law reform in the courts and the proclamation of a “rule of law,” the dark shadow of lawlessness hangs over any challenge to the party-state’s grasp over Chinese society.
Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, is Distinguished Lecturer in Residence (ret.) at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. He is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao” (Stanford University Press, 1999) and editor of “The Evolution of Law Reform in China: An Uncertain Path” (Elgar, 2012).
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http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2015/10/07/harmonious-demolition-and-chinese-legal-reform/?mod=WSJBlog
