BEIJING: China’s Communist Party unveiled legal reforms yesterday aimed at giving judges more independence and limiting local officials’ influence over courts, but it made no mention of the fate of its former domestic security chief who is under investigation for corruption.
The moves, made at a closed-door meeting of the ruling party’s elite, are pivotal to the workings of China’s market economy, the world’s second largest. They come at a time when slowing growth raises the prospect of more commercial disputes.
The measures also reflect worries by China’s leaders about rising social unrest in recent years. Anger over land grabs, corruption and pollution - issues often left unresolved by the courts — have resulted in violent clashes between police and residents, threatening social stability.
The meeting said it would improve the supervision of China’s constitution under the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament. It said the Supreme Court would also establish circuit courts in a move to boost judicial independence. The lack of detail in the announcements disappointed some China watchers, who wanted to see a bolder statement of intent.
The absence of news about the investigation into Zhou Yongkang, China’s former domestic security tsar, on corruption charges, was a surprise to some, although it may come soon. Reuters reported last week that Zhou was set to be expelled from the Communist Party at the plenum, possibly paving the way for his formal prosecution.
The case sent shock waves through the country’s political establishment, and served as a warning that President Xi Jinping was serious about his anti-graft fight and that no one was above the law, not even former Politburo Standing Committee members such as Zhou.
The party’s anti-graft watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, will hold its fourth plenary session tomorrow, state news agency Xinhua said.
Cheng Li, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, expected the party to give details about Zhou’s case at that meeting, and said the party would not want his case to overshadow the main gathering, called the fourth plenum.
However, the plenum did formalise previously approved expulsions of several officials and executives linked to Zhou and investigated for graft.
They include Li Dongsheng, former vice minister of public security; Jiang Jiemin, the former head of the state asset regulator; and Wang Yongchun, former deputy head of state energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation.
Others expelled included Yang Jinshan, deputy commander of the Chengdu Military Area Command of the People’s Liberation Army; Li Chuncheng, a former party boss of the southwestern city of Chengdu; and Wan Qingliang, the former party boss of the southern city of Guangzhou. The four-day meeting, which ended yesterday, was made up of the roughly 370-member Central Committee.
Reuters
