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Qingdao City Judicial Bureau Violates the Law by Forbidding Attorneys to Represent Falun Gong Practitioners By a person from Shandong Province, China
(Clearwisdom.net) The Qingdao City judicial bureau ignored the law and
issued "classified documents" to all the legal firms under its
jurisdiction, forbidding attorneys in Qingdao from offering legal assistance to
Falun Gong practitioners. The whole document, dated February 15, 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 attorneys in handling sensitive,
felony and questionable cases," that when handling sensitive, felony 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 attorney's judicial bureau. It's
definitely regulated that Falun Gong lawsuits are considered sensitive, felony
and questionable cases. However, recently a few law offices and attorneys 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, attorneys must specially report to the
director of their law office and the law office must first report to the
attorney'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, attorney, content and result of
these cases to the city's attorney administration department before February
25. 3. All law offices shall immediately organize 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 attorney's handling of Falun Gong cases, strengthen education,
check periodically and solemnly criticize those law offices and attorneys
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 attorneys will be publicly reprimanded. Then how did the Qingdao City judicial bureau direct the attorneys that
handled Falun Gong cases? Among these 103 law offices and 1,468 attorneys
registered in Qingdao, no attorney could be found to dare to defend the innocent
Falun Gong practitioners who pled not guilty. On the morning of January 25,
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 attorney for them, the Qingdao judicial bureau exerted pressure and
asked the attorney to withdraw from the case, threatening that the attorney must
not handle this case or represent those who pled not guilty. Under unbearable
pressure, these two attorneys 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 attorney'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 attorneys 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 Spokesman of Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau: Lu Tao The supervising office of Qingdao City's Judicial Bureau: 86-532-85912212 March 12, 2006 Posting date: 3/28/2006 |