Violations of Chinese Law

Re: Petition for Adjudication Supervision in the Case of Jude Shao (Jingzu Shao ), filed with the Supreme People's Court in accordance with Article 203 of the Criminal Procedure Law on January 28, 2003

• Ask the Supreme People's Court to act on the conclusion of the Experts' Committee convened by the Center for Research in Criminal Legal Science at National People’s University and order that the case be retried in light of the new evidence that Jude has presented.
  
  
• Raise the point that the Experts’ Committee concluded that the Judicial Audit that formed the basis of the case against Jude violated Article 39 of its own General Regulation, which expressly prohibits such Audits from exceeding their advisory authority and pronouncing on the parties' criminal liability. Note also that Article 42 of the same General Regulation provides that Audits going beyond the scope of their authority are invalid.
  
  
• Emphasize the Experts’ Committee’s conclusions that, if accepted in a retrial, the new evidence would contradict the trial court's determination on the “instigation to falsify VAT invoices” charge, show that the evidence at trial on the second count of tax evasion required further investigation "to exclude all reasonable doubt," and that "the People's Court should retry the case according to law."
  
  
• Praise China’s innovative practice of convening an Experts' Committee to deliberate on difficult criminal law issues, because it allows courts to draw on scholarly opinion to guide the rapidly developing Chinese legal system while protecting the independence of the judiciary. Note the great weight that civil law systems place on scholarly opinion.
  
  
• Point out that adopting the Expert Committee's recommendations neither admits error or fault nor signifies that a Chinese court has submitted to outside pressure, but shows that the Chinese legal system seeks to ensure justice in a particular case.
  
  
• Cite the apparent contravention of Article 95 of the Criminal Procedure law, which requires that interrogations be transcribed and signed by the suspect. In Jude’s original trial, the police were never able to produce records of Jude's alleged "confessions."
  
  
• Deplore Jude's incommunicado detention for 26 months as an apparent contravention of Article 96 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Stress the importance of not allowing procedural irregularities like this to undermine the credibility of the legal system.
  
  
• Note that Jude’s incommunicado detention may also have violated Article 35 of the US-China Consular Convention.