This Week in Asian Law

March 6-March 12

China

  • The 2021 annual plenary meetings of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and National People’s Congress (NPC) continued through the week.

    • Supreme People’s Court (SPC) President Zhou Qiang delivered a work report on the courts’ performance and achievements during 2020. Chinese courts nationwide received more than 30.8 million cases last year. Here is the breakdown of the numbers. (in Chinese)

    • Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) President Zhang Jun delivered a work report about prosecutors’ performance and achievements in 2020, illustrated with pictures and statistics. The SPP held a press conference to highlight key points in the report. (in Chinese)

    • The amended Organic Law of the NPC and amended Rules of Procedure for the NPC were approved and took effect on March 12. The English text of the current version is available here and here.

    • The NPC approved the Decision on Improving the Electoral System of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region on March 11. The NPC Observer analyzed the key elements of the decision. The U.S. and UK condemned the NPC’s action.

  • The SPP launched an online platform that allows lawyers to access digitized case documents without visiting prosecutors’ offices. The system is being piloted in Shanghai, Anhui, and Chongqing. The SPP plans to make the platform available in other cities nationwide in the second half of this year. (in Chinese)

  • The SPC, the SPP, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued a document targeting false litigation. The document set out features of false civil litigation that is used to cover criminal activities. (in Chinese)

  • The China Justice Observer, an online platform sponsored by the Academy for the Rule of Law at China University of Political Science and Law, published three articles analyzing current issues in IP infringement, filing lawsuits from outside China, and foreign investors setting up limited liability companies in China.

  • The Henan Provincial Procuratorate indicted a defendant who is currently living overseas on corruption charges. It is the reportedly the first time the procuratorate is using a special procedure to bring a defendant to trial in absentia. The special procedure was codified in the Criminal Procedure Law in 2018.

Hong Kong

Japan

  • March 11, 2021 marked the 10th anniversary of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster. In a series of articles examining the lasting impacts, the East Asian Forum noted that although courts have found the government and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) liable for damages, victims have received only small amounts of compensation. In the only criminal case, the Tokyo District Court acquitted the defendants, three top TEPCO officials.

  • The Japanese Cabinet approved the plastic-material recycling promotion bill to curb the use of single-use plastic products. The government plans to require business operators that offer consumers large amounts of disposable plastic products, such as spoons and straws, to offer alternatives or charge fees for the single-use plastics. The bill aims to reduce plastic usage and help prevent plastic from ending up in the ocean.

  • An editorial called for an effective system to weed out pedophile school teachers by introducing a new law modelled on the British system, where individuals seeking jobs involving children are required to submit official certification that they do not have a criminal record.

  • At a rally against sexual violence to mark International Women’s Day, protesters in Tokyo demanded that all forms of non-consensual sex be made punishable as crimes. The current Criminal Law revised in 2017 no longer requires victims to file a complaint in order to charge offenders. However, “forcible sexual intercourse” and similar offenses are only recognized as crimes if they are committed through “assault or intimidation.”

    On the same day, another group of protesters marched in Tokyo to demand an end to gender discrimination. Gender equality issues gained attention this year, as the pandemic has driven many women out of work and increased their burden of housework and childcare. In an editorial, The Mainichi said Japan’s “old-man politics” must give way to true equality.

Koreas

  • South Korea's Supreme Court refused to reverse its own 1989 acquittal of the owner of the Brothers Home in Busan, a massive institution that housed thousands of people accused of vagrancy during the former military dictatorship. The state-subsidized home was supposed to be a welfare facility but former inmates say they were forced into labor and tortured. In a controversial ruling in 1989, the Supreme Court acquitted Brothers Home owner Park In-keun of charges linked to illegal confinement of inmates. Victims had sought an exceptional appeal and compensation. No one has ever been held accountable for the deaths, rapes, beatings, and forced work at the home.

  • South Korean President Moon Jae-in called on prosecutors to earn public trust and defended his moves to completely strip prosecutors of their powers to investigate crimes, leaving them with only the power to issue indictments. Moon, formerly a human rights lawyer, advocates giving the police more investigative powers in ordinary criminal cases. He has already established a Corruption Investigation Office For High-ranking Officials, and his Democratic Party recently presented a plan to establish a Serious Crimes Investigative Agency under the Ministry of Justice to investigate six types of crimes. After that move, Prosecutor General Yoon Seok-youl resigned.

  • The Constitutional Court of South Korea unanimously rejected a request by Lim Seong-geun, a retired senior judge at the Busan High Court, to recuse a particular justice from his upcoming impeachment trial. Lim was impeached last month by the National Assembly for allegedly meddling in several politically sensitive trials during the previous administration, becoming the nation's first judge to be impeached.

  • More than a dozen public officials in South Korea are accused of buying land for possible property speculation on the basis of insider information. The scandal involves employees of the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corp. who allegedly bought about US$8.88 million worth of farmland between April 2018 and June 2020 in an area designated by the central government as the site of a major housing development project. They made the purchases before the development plans were announced.

  • The South Korean government met with providers of online services such as Google, Facebook, Netflix, Naver, Kakao, and Wavve to set up detailed guidelines for the country’s so-called “Netflix Law.” The law, a revision to the Telecommunications Business Act, took effect in December and requires internet providers to provide stable services. Foreign providers should have local representatives and be equipped with proper payment systems.

Taiwan

  • Migrant domestic workers in Taiwan rallied in front of the Legislative Yuan on March 8, International Women's Day, to ask for legal protections. Migrant domestic workers are not covered by the Labor Standards Act and do not receive overtime or severance pay. An estimated 230,000 Southeast Asian women currently work in Taiwanese households with monthly salaries of only NT$17,000 (US$600), well below Taiwan's minimum wage of NT$24,000 per month.

  • Taiwan’s Constitutional Court heard legal arguments about how the rights of indigenous people to hunt game as part of their culture should be balanced against gun control and wildlife conservation laws. Tama Talum, an indigenous Bunun man, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on weapons and poaching charges for shooting a Reeve's muntjac and a Formosan serow with a modified rifle in 2013. In 2015, the Supreme Court granted an extraordinary appeal to have the case referred to the Constitutional Court for an interpretation.

  • Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers are seeking a review of the constitutionality of the government’s nationalization of irrigation associations, whose assets are valued at about US$2.67 billion. The Farmland Irrigation Act passed by the Legislative Yuan last July converted 17 irrigation associations into a government body, the Agency of Irrigation. In their application to the Council of Grand Justices, the 38 KMT lawmakers said the irrigation law contravenes freedom of association and the principles of legal reservation and proportionality, and amounts to government seizure of private property. The Council of Grand Justices rejected an earlier request by KMT lawmakers to review the same law on other grounds.

  • On International Women’s Day, the New Power Party urged the Executive Yuan to propose an anti-stalking and harassment law and amend the Social Order Maintenance Act to raise the fines imposed on people convicted of stalking. Party leaders said that the government recorded more than 7,600 complaints of stalking, harassment or pestering last year, but existing laws do not give police sufficient grounds to intervene, making a specific law necessary.

  • Prosecutors in New Taipei District said they are investigating two subsidiaries of a Chinese semiconductor company on suspicion of illegally recruiting hundreds of Taiwanese engineers. Taiwan prohibits Chinese firms from doing business or recruiting locally without approval. The Chinese parent company, Bitmain Technologies Ltd (比特大陸), develops semiconductors for mining and other purposes. China is trying to develop its own semiconductor industry to reduce dependency on U.S. companies.

  • The Taipei High Administrative Court overturned the decision of a Taipei District household registration office not to register a same-sex marriage involving a foreign national from a country where same-sex marriages are illegal. The district office’s original decision reflected a standard reading of Taiwan’s Act Governing the Choice of Law in Civil Matters Involving Foreign Elements, which states that the formation of marriage is governed by the law of each country. The court noted that another clause of the same law says the laws of foreign states should not be applied if doing so violates “the public order or boni mores [good morals] of the Republic of China.”

  • Taiwan Cabinet spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said the government is drafting an amendment to the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Act in compliance with an order from the Constitutional Court. In its Interpretation No. 790 issued last year, the court said that the existing law's minimum sentence of five years in prison for marijuana cultivation, with no consideration of the seriousness of the case, violates the principle of proportionality established in Article 23 of the Constitution.

Vietnam

  • Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has approved a two-year mobile money pilot project that will pave the way for payments of up to US$435/month/account to be made using mobile phone accounts. The project enables money transfers and payments for legal products and services within Vietnam only, using Vietnamese dong.

  • Vietnamese Ambassador Le Thi Tuyet Mai spoke at the 46th Regular Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council about the Vietnamese government’s policies and achievements in promoting cultural rights, food rights, and human rights, including the rights of children, people with disabilities. Mai is the head of Vietnam’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and other international organizations in Geneva.