China's Quest for Justice

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Watching the lawyer Chen Bulei argue his case, it was easy to forget that he was almost certain to lose. Pacing confidently before a packed courtroom in the northeastern Chinese city of Haicheng earlier this year, he scored rhetorical points so deftly that sympathetic onlookers pumped their fists like fans at a sporting event. Chen's client, a 56-year-old talc miner named Zhao Jitian, was on trial for "assembling a mob to disrupt social order"—a politically charged criminal offense often invoked to silence Chinese citizens who band together to air grievances against their employers or the government. Police in Haicheng had arrested Zhao five months earlier after he took part in a demonstration with about 100 other laid-off employees of the Aihai Talc Company to demand benefits they claim the firm had illegally withheld for nearly eight years. It is exceedingly rare for defendants charged with political crimes in China to escape conviction. But with Chen in his corner, brandishing a pocket-sized copy of China's criminal code as he punched hole after hole in the prosecution's charges, it seemed Zhao just might walk out of the courtroom a free man.

He did not. According to Chinese law, to convict Zhao the prosecutors would have to prove he had organized the protest and that it had caused substantial material harm. Chen argued compellingly that the prosecution's case rested on a report by an appraisal company that explicitly stated it had treated all the mining firm's claims as fact—instead of conducting an independent audit—and on an eyewitness account by someone who had been miles away from the scene of the protest. Chen also called a witness who testified under oath to having been coerced by police into signing an affidavit he had not read. But despite the presence of dozens of onlookers (including this TIME reporter), despite the rarity of a criminal trial in which witnesses are called and the defendant actually has a lawyer, two of the three presiding judges slept through Chen's closing argument. A few weeks later, Zhao was sentenced to three years in jail.

Chen was disappointed, but not surprised. Like a small but growing number of Chinese lawyers, he has made it a part of his career to argue cases he knows he probably won't win. Whether pleading the cases of criminal defendants pro bono or filing lawsuits against government agencies and other powerful entities, these lawyers—"rights defenders" as many now call themselves—share a belief that the law can be used to change the status quo. Though hardly a movement, they have become an increasingly significant force. In a country allergic to challenges to authority, they make noise about everything from illegal land seizures, pollution and sexual harassment, to the pricing of train tickets and discrimination against short people. Mostly, their work throws a harsh light on the chasm between China's law as it is written and the reality on the ground. But they may also prove instrumental in closing that chasm.

In a society haunted by decades of political turmoil and reeling from wild economic growth and rampant corruption, the concept of the law as a way to settle disputes or win justice remains a novelty. Still, over the past two decades, the law and the legal system have begun to take root. China's leaders, including President Hu Jintao, speak often of the importance of "administering the country according to law." The legal profession and legal education have mushroomed; China's government has enacted thousands of new laws; and major institutions like the legislatures and the courts have been strengthened and professionalized. But activist lawyers who try to take advantage of these developments still face enormous obstacles. Many courts simply refuse to take certain cases. "If the subject is sensitive or new, most judges will just decide they don't want the hassle," says Guo Jianmei, founder of the Peking University Center for Women's Law and Legal Services, one of China's first legal-aid NGOs. Even when they do take such cases, judges are often instructed how to rule by Communist Party-controlled supervisory organs called politics and law committees, or simply pressured by the local governments that pay their salaries.

In light of these hurdles, many lawyers rely heavily on the media to bolster their cases. At times, media scrutiny can pressure judges into ruling a certain way. It may also attract attention from more powerful government organs that pressure the institutions beneath them to comply with the law and settle out of court or even change laws and policies. In 2003, for example, a lawsuit by relatives of Sun Zhigang, a man beaten to death in police detention after being arrested for not carrying his ID card, provoked an intense public outcry, especially on Chinese Web sites. Three months after Sun's death, the State Council abolished the rules that had allowed police to detain the man in the first place. "The best lawyers have to be media savvy," says Phyllis Chang, an American expert on Chinese legal reform. "It's extremely rare for them to crack anything open without the media."