The Qingdao City judicial bureau ignored the law and issued "classified documents" to all the legal firms under its jurisdiction, forbidding lawyers in Qingdao from offering legal assistance to Falun Gong practitioners.
The whole document, dated February 15th, is as follows:
All law offices under jurisdiction of Qingdao City's judicial bureau:
It's clearly required in the No. 7 document issued by Qingdao's judicial bureau in 2004, "Notice of strengthening lawyers in handling sensitive, criminal and questionable cases," that when handling sensitive, criminal and questionable cases all law offices should report to the superintendent administrative department of the judicial bureau within seven days. All district and city judicial bureaus should report promptly to the administration department of the city lawyer's judicial bureau. It's definitely regulated that Falun Gong lawsuits are considered sensitive, criminal and questionable cases. However, recently a few law offices and lawyers did not report promptly when handling Falun Gong lawsuits. Consequently the administration department did not know of the cases, was not in timely control of the situation and was passive. In order to strengthen the guidance of how to handle Falun Gong lawsuits, we now state the following requirements:
1. When handling Falun Gong cases, lawyers must specially report to the director of their law office and the law office must first report to the lawyer's administration department of Judicial Bureau and earnestly listen to direction and opinions from the judicial administration department.
2. All law offices should collect and add up all Falun Gong cases handled in the past two years, and report the time, lawyer, content and result of these cases to the city's lawyer administration department before February 25th.
3. All law offices shall immediately organise everyone to study the spirit of the notice and earnestly follow the requirements of the notice. All judicial bureaus at district and city level should strengthen the direction of lawyer's handling of Falun Gong cases, strengthen education, check periodically and solemnly criticise those law offices and lawyers that did not report the cases promptly. The city's judicial bureau will examine the implementation of the notice. For those who seriously violated the requirements, especially those who refused to accept the guidance from judicial administration after this notice was issued, the corresponding law offices and lawyers will be publicly reprimanded.
Then how did the Qingdao City judicial bureau direct the lawyers that handled Falun Gong cases? Among these 103 law offices and 1,468 lawyers registered in Qingdao, no lawyer could be found to dare to defend the innocent Falun Gong practitioners who pled not guilty. On the morning of January 25th, 2006, Ou Yunjie's father, Ou Zhaolin, who is an ordinary person with no law knowledge, had to defend his daughter and wife who pled not guilty. Although the father of innocent couple Sun Hong and Min Huirong went through great difficulty to find an lawyer for them, the Qingdao judicial bureau exerted pressure and asked the lawyer to withdraw from the case, threatening that the lawyer must not handle this case or represent those who pled not guilty. Under unbearable pressure, these two lawyers intended to give up Sun Hong and Min Huirong's lawsuit commission.
The guidance from Qingdao City's judicial bureau openly violates the law and seriously violates human rights and lawyer's rights. The document of Qingdao City's judicial bureau is radical evidence of their crime. They are violating the rights of Falun Gong practitioners and threatening lawyers who honestly carry out their legal duty.
Contact information for related institutions and persons:
Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau: 86-532-85912208 address: No. 7 Minjiang Rd. Qingdao City
E-mail: [email protected]
Spokesman of Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau: Lu Tao
Human resource division, political department, Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau, Shandong Province, address: No. 7 Minjiang Rd. Qingdao City, Shandong Province, telephone: 86-532-85912230, fax: 86-532-85912209
Linkman: Gao Jun
Postal code: 266071
The supervising office of Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau: 86-532-85912212
Administrative division of attorney at Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau: 86-532-95712090
Secretary division of Qingdao City's lawyer association: 86-532-85972651
Director of Licang District Court: Yu Jianli; deputy director: Pang Dachuan
Deputy prosecutor of Licang District Procuratorate: Mou Xiaoyu and Wang Zixing
Qingdao City's police department, Police Superintendent Team, Reports: 86-532-82026427
Licang District Procuratorate: 86-532-87632000
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/3/14/122753.html
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