China yesterday defended a controversial detention measure set to become law when a new anti-corruption “super ministry” is formally set up next month, calling it a unique step necessary to combat graft.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has vowed to intensify efforts to root out corruption among officials and called for strong mechanisms that would effectively form a “cage” to prevent officials from breaking rules.
The National People’s Congress is expected to pass the new law and amend the state constitution at an annual meeting next month, finalizing the establishment of a National Supervision Commission with the power to investigate all state employees.
The powerful new body has been criticized by some legal scholars for failing to protect the rights of suspects during investigations, in part because it is to use a controversial liuzhi (留置, “detention”) system that operates outside existing criminal procedure law.
“Major crimes related to official duties are not the same as normal crimes and the investigations cannot be done in the same way,” said Zhang Shuofu (張碩輔), who heads the Beijing Supervision Commission, one of the three bureaus set up last year ahead of the agency’s nationwide roll-out.
“That’s why the Central Committee of the party has adopted the detention measure,” he told reporters during a rare visit to the bureau, reading from a prepared statement.
China’s top-down methods of supervision are “totally different” from the system of checks and balances in nations where supervision agencies are subordinate to the courts and prosecutors, Zhang added.
Journalists were not shown detention facilities and were only able to visit an empty reception hall for petitioners submitting written reports on graft.
Zhang took two questions, one on coordination between the commission and prosecutors, and the other querying if the reforms had drawn on the experiences of similar systems overseas.
He ignored part of the second question about proposed changes to China’s constitution that would allow Xi to stay on as president for longer than just two terms.
Xi in October last year announced the new detention system to replace the previous shuanggui (雙規) system, in which party members submitted to questioning at a location and time chosen by investigators.
Rights groups have said the old secretive extra-legal measures that made use of off-grid locations with little oversight allowed torture, abuse and forced confessions.
Some rights advocates and legal experts have expressed concern that the new detention system would merely entrench and extend previous practices under a veneer of legality.
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