China's unjust labour camps must go
John Gong believes that those who challenge China's unjust and absurd punishment of labour re-education are vital in the larger push for change, even if they don't at first succeed
Imagine you are a young man standing handcuffed in the Old Bailey, London's courtroom, in 1791, facing a capital crime for which you have been framed. Enter William Garrow, a young defence lawyer, uttering these words: "Innocent until proven guilty!" - which saved you from the gallows, and also saved justice from the gallows.
The principle of the presumption of innocence, although often attributed to Garrow, can actually be traced back to earlier times. A sixth-century Roman law provided "Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies" as a rule of evidence. Today, this is a basic principle when it comes to criminal matters in all jurisdictions around the world. For example, Article 12 of China's Criminal Procedure Law states: "No one is found guilty unless and until determined by a people's court."
Yet when it comes to a type of punishment known as re-education through labour, which is akin to a jail sentence after a court conviction, the people's court is nowhere in sight.
The practice stems from a 1957 State Council decree regarding job training for those, such as drug addicts or prostitutes, caught committing minor crimes. The purpose was to re-educate these people, giving them new skills so they could re-enter society with the means to support themselves. That is how the name, re-education through labour, came about.
Notwithstanding the legitimacy and legality of maintaining the practice for more than 50 years, with respect to compliance with the constitution in today's environment the rule was never meant to function as an alternative to criminal law. Yet it has been abused by authorities to such an extent that it now makes a mockery of the criminal law system.
