January 23-29
China
The Legal Aid Research Institute of the China University of Politics and Law (CUPL) and Beijing Legal Aid Research Center for the Disabled released a report about the top ten events that promoted legal protection for the disabled in China in 2020. (in Chinese)
Two CUPL institutes, the Legal Aid Research Institute and the Research Base of Juvenile Affairs, joined the Juvenile Prosecutorial Research Center of Beijing Normal University to released a list of top ten events in 2020 that significantly promoted the interests of juveniles in China. (in Chinese)
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) released a document calling for a periodic meeting mechanism to enhance cooperation between prosecutors and defense lawyers. The document follows on a memorandum co-issued by the SPP, Ministry of Justice and All-China Bar Association last month. (in Chinese)
The National People’s Congress Standing Committee released for public comment seven draft laws or proposed amendments: the Legal Aid Law, Military Service Law, Physicians Law, Wetlands Protection Law, Family Education Law, Workplace Safety Law, and Education Law. Comments may be submitted through February 25, 2021. The NPC Observer has links to the drafts and explanatory documents here.
Hong Kong
A 74-year-old Hong Kong man, Koo Sze-yiu, was convicted of desecrating the national flag and given a four-month prison sentence. The court found that Koo displayed an inverted and smeared Chinese national flag for nearly 20 minutes during a rally outside the court last July. The judge said the act was a blatant insult to the flag and might have incited other criminal behavior or political clashes.
The British government will accept applications from Hong Kong residents for British National Overseas (BNO) passports beginning January 31. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters that as of the same date, China will cease to recognize BNO passports as valid travel or ID documents. He also accused Britain of interfering in Hong Kong and Chinese affairs by issuing the passports. Hong Kong Executive Council Convener Bernard Chan predicted that the number of persons leaving Hong Kong for Britain under the scheme will not be large, and will be offset by arrivals from mainland China. The last time Britain issued BNO passports to Hong Kong residents was in 1997.
China’s state-run media attacked the new chairman of Hong Kong’s Bar Association, Paul Harris, for two days in a row over his suggestion that the National Security Law be modified in order to persuade foreign countries to reinstate extradition agreements with Hong Kong that were suspended after China imposed the National Security Law there last summer. People’s Daily accused Mr. Harris of having “lost professionalism and rationality.”
Japan
The ruling Liberal Democratic Party on January 28 has dropped its proposal to impose criminal penalties on COVID-19 patients who refuse to be hospitalized or cooperate with contact tracers. The proposal, part of a package of legislative measures intended to toughen the government’s response to the pandemic, was heavily criticized. The new version of the proposed legislation would impose fines on uncooperative COVID patients.
Human Rights Watch called on Japan to protect its child athletes and ensure safe sport. The organization was following up on a report it issued in July 2020 that said child athletes in Japan have long been beaten and verbally abused to push them to win trophies and medals. It said the Tokyo Olympics, rescheduled to take place in July 2021, is a good opportunity for Japan to change its laws and policies.
The Supreme Court of Japan ordered two former junior high school bullies to pay 4 million yen ($38,600) in compensation to the parents of a boy who took his own life after suffering severe bullying in 2011. Although the compensation is much lower than the parents originally sought, the lawyer for the boy’s parents said the ruling is significant because it recognizes the causal relationship between bullying and suicide. The boy’s suicide prompted legislation that requires schools to detect and report on bullying among students.
A group of 116 human rights and LGBT organizations sent a letter to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga on January 25 asking for legislation to protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. The groups noted that the Olympic Charter bans discrimination of any kind.
A National Police Agency’s expert panel released a report on January 28 stating that the definition of “stalking and other acts” banned under an anti-stalking law should include obtaining someone’s location information using GPS devices without their consent. The report also recommended the law be revised to specifically outlaw secretly installing GPS devices in cars, slipping such devices into belongings, or obtaining targets’ locations by secretly installing GPS-related apps on their smartphones.
The Sapporo City’s Board of Education decided to fire a male teacher accused of sexually abusing a female student 25 years ago. In December, the Tokyo High Court made a determination that the student had indeed been sexually abused, but dismissed her lawsuit as time-barred.
Koreas
South Korean media report that a senior North Korean diplomat has defected to South Korea with his family. North Korea’s then-acting ambassador to Kuwait, Ryu Hyun-woo, reportedly reached South Korea in September 2019 and sought asylum, but the news was kept secret until now. Two month before Ryu’s defection, North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song-gil, also defected to the South.
South Korea’s National Assembly has passed child protection legislation, including a ban on corporal punishment at home and a requirement that police investigate immediately when medical professionals or child welfare agencies alert them to possible abuse. The legislation is in response to the death of a 16-month-old child last October, allegedly at the hands of her adoptive parents.
The Constitutional Court said on January 28 that the establishment of a powerful new anti-corruption agency, the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, is constitutional. The main opposition party had argued that the office violates the constitutional principle of separation of powers because it is independent of the executive branch. However, the court said the office essentially belongs to the executive.
A pro-unification organization in South Korea has urged the U.S. Congress not to hold a hearing on a recently approved South Korean law that bans sending leaflets into North Korea. The North Korean Committee for the June 15 Joint Declaration, which was established to uphold the peace agreement from the first inter-Korean summit in 2000, issued the appeal in a statement that it said was signed by about 420 civic organizations. It says any hearing by the U.S. Congress would be an infringement on their country's sovereignty. Some U.S. congressmen have criticized the leaflet ban as suppression of free speech.
A conscientious objector to South Korea’s mandatory military service has asked the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the Act on the Assignment and Performance of the Alternative Service. The petitioner refused to enlist for religious reasons and is now carrying out alternative service as a prison staff member under the 2019 alternative service act. His petition claims that the act is punitive in nature and violates the freedom of conscience and the rights to happiness and equality.
South Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family has called for family law reforms to accommodate various types of family and household structures such as cohabiting couples who are not married. According to a poll of 1,500 people conducted by the ministry last year, 65.5% of the respondents were “accepting of men and women living together without getting married.”
Taiwan
The Judicial Yuan, which is in charge of all courts in Taiwan, is considering canceling honors given to six judges implicated in the corruption scandal involving businessman Weng Mao-Chung. (in Chinese) Critics continue to accuse the Judicial Yuan of lowering its ethical standards and taking insufficient action against several dozen judges and prosecutors caught up in the scandal. Some members of the Control Yuan, Taiwan’s main anti-corruption body, are calling for further action.
A commentary in the Taipei Times suggests that city and county councilors be required to disclose the names, titles, and salaries of their assistants after repeated cases have surfaced of councilors embezzling funds by putting bogus assistants on their payrolls. The commentary said legislative action proposed by the Ministry of the Interior last year after an investigation falls short of what’s needed. Although the salary of a councilor’s assistant is low, some councilors have been accused of embezzling millions of Taiwan dollars over the years through shell accounts set up for multiple fake assistants.
The Taipei High Administrative Court on January 28 rejected a request by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to access NT$16.9 million ($594,610) in frozen assets to pay the 2014 recipients of its Sun Yat-sen Scholarship. The scholarship scheme was created by the KMT in 1960 to provide financial aid to KMT members to study abroad. The Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, an independent government agency established in 2016 as part of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party’s push for transitional justice, froze the KMT’s assets that same year.
Taipei prosecutors have launched an investigation into allegations of financial fraud, embezzlement, document forgery, and breach of trust by Chang Ming-fang (張銘芳), a former Microsoft Taiwan sales manager, and executives from five other companies.
Vietnam
The Communist Party of Vietnam opened its party congress, held every five years in recent decades, on January 25. General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who also serves as state president, is 77 years old and was expected to retire, but reportedly is maneuvering to win a third term. The leadership lineup and policy decisions will be announced near the end of the meeting, which is scheduled to run nine days. According to Human Rights Watch, numerous bloggers and dissidents were arrested and sentenced to prison terms in the months leading to the party congress.
A French court began hearing a lawsuit filed by Vietnamese-French national Tran Thi To Nga against 14 multinational companies for their role in producing and selling Agent Orange, a defoliant containing the chemical dioxin that the United States military sprayed heavily over large areas of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The plaintiff lived in affected areas during the war and alleges that she, her children, and grandchildren were sickened. She has been unsuccessful in attempts to sue chemical companies in U.S. courts.