May 22-May 28
China
Michelle Bachelet, the first UN high commissioner for human rights to visit China in 17 years, met with President Xi Jinping via videolink and described the meeting as a “valuable opportunity” to highlight rights issues and concerns. China’s state media reported that Bachelet told Xi she admired the “efforts and achievement China has made in the areas of poverty elimination [and] human rights protection.” However, her spokeswoman quickly released a transcript that did not include such a remark.
A local court in Shanghai ruled in favor of a woman who sued a hospital for denying her request to use frozen embryos fertilized by her now-deceased husband. The hospital cited China’s ban on reproductive treatments for single women in refusing to implant the existing embryos into her uterus. The court sided with the plaintiff and found the ban inapplicable in this situation. However, the court ignited outrage among advocates of women’s reproductive rights on Chinese social media by stating in its judgment: “The regulation has to stay in place because it prevents single women from using assisted reproductive technology to evade the responsibilities of marriage and family.”
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) held a press conference focused on the implementation of juvenile protection and juvenile delinquency laws and announced several special operation plans. It said that in 2021, procuratorial authorities nationwide prosecuted 60,553 people for crimes against minors, up 5.69% year-on-year, of which 27,851 were prosecuted for sexual assault. The SPP said 2,159 minors from 12 to 14 years of age who were suspected of serious violent crimes had been sent to special schools for correctional education. It also announced plans to issue new implementation measures for sealing minors’ criminal records, and to publish a white paper and encyclopedia on juvenile prosecution. Later in the week, the SPP released six typical cases in which individuals or organizations required by law to report infringement of minor’s rights were held responsible for failing to report. From May 2020 to March 2022, prosecutors handled 2,854 cases based on leads that came from mandatory reporting.
The SPP released its first batch of eight typical cases in which people's supervisors exercised their supervising power over prosecutors. Under the system of people’s supervisors, which began in 2003, eligible lay citizens are charged with supervising various prosecutorial activities, including public hearings over criminal petitions, non-prosecution decisions, examination of the need for pretrial detentions, approval of arrest in major criminal cases, etc.
The Supreme People’s Court issued Opinions on Strengthening Blockchain Application in the Judicial Field and released the full text of the document in Chinese and English.
A special conference of nationwide prosecutorial organs was held to promote the work of combating pension fraud crimes.
On May 23, 2022, the Beijing Intellectual Property (IP) Court announced for the first time that it had dismissed a trademark case for lack of jurisdiction under the Supreme People’s Court’s new judicial interpretation on “Jurisdiction of Civil and Administrative Cases of Intellectual Property Rights of First Instance” released April 21, 2022. According to the new rules, the proper courts for trademark infringement cases are basic people’s courts and not the specialized IP court. The Beijing IP Court, however, retains jurisdiction over technical IP infringement cases, such as for invention patents.
Japan
Japan’s top court held that the inability of Japanese citizens abroad to cast ballots to decide whether to dismiss appointed Supreme Court justices is unconstitutional. Five plaintiffs argued that the exclusion of overseas Japanese violates citizens’ “inalienable right to choose their public officials and to dismiss them” as defined in Article 15 of the Constitution. In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court said that “the Constitution guarantees the right to vote in public reviews of Supreme Court justices just as it does enfranchisement, and limits on the right are in principal unacceptable.” The court ordered the government to pay 5,000 yen ($39) in damages to each plaintiff.
Koreas
The Constitutional Court of South Korea ruled that the lawyers’ code of conduct banning them from joining online legal counseling platforms is unconstitutional. The decision is expected to cause sweeping changes to the practice of law in South Korea. Last year, the Korean Bar Association revised the lawyers’ code of conduct to prohibit lawyers from working with such online platforms on the grounds that the platforms are paid brokers between lawyers and clients in violation of the Attorney-at-Law Act. It also barred lawyers from running online service advertisements. The court said the advertising ban was impermissibly vague.
Hong Kong
Former Hong Kong University law professor and activist Benny Tai was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty to illegal election spending. Tai was accused of placing six newspaper advertisements for pan-democratic candidates in the 2016 Legislative Council elections. This was deemed a violation of election laws because Tai was not a candidate. Tai also faces charges of conspiracy to commit subversion related to an unofficial primary held in July 2020.
Hong Kong’s Law Society has formed a panel to investigate a complaint by national security police against lawyers in connection with the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, a legal defense fund set up during the 2019 anti-government protests. Some barristers allegedly drew money from the fund as legal fees while telling the judiciary that they were providing pro bono services. Earlier in May, all five trustees of the fund were charged with colluding with foreign forces to endanger national security. They pleaded not guilty.
The Hong Kong Court of First Instance has allowed enforcement of a South Korean judgment in Hong Kong despite the lack of any mutual enforcement agreement between the jurisdictions. The court said it applied well-established common law principles and found that allowing the enforcement of the judgment would not offend Hong Kong’s notions of substantial justice or public policy.
Taiwan
The Constitutional Court overturned a Supreme Court child custody decision, saying that it violated the Constitution’s intent to protect the rights and dignity of minors. The case involved a custody dispute between a Italian father and a Taiwanese mother of an eight-year-old girl. Both the District Court and Supreme Court had ruled that the father had sole parental rights and ordered the mother to return the child to her father. The child then wrote a widely publicized letter to President Tsai Ing-wen, saying she wished to stay in Taiwan. In remanding the case to the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court found the ruling failed to consider the best interests of the child, who had spent more time in Taiwan than in Italy.