July 16-22
China
A well-known citizen rights’ activist, Hao Jinsong, who has been detained since December 2019 when he refused to delete some social media posts, was convicted of fraud and picking quarrels and provoking trouble. The court in Dingxiang County, Shanxi Province, handed down a nine year sentence and fined him RMB 350,000. A closed-door trial was held in November 2021, and no explanation has been given for the delayed verdict. Hao gained fame during the Hu-Wen era for filing public interest lawsuits to force government agencies to comply with administrative rules such as information disclosure.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate said that in the second quarter of 2023, procuratorial organs nationwide recorded and reported a total of 61,707 incidents of intervention, interference, or meddling in the procuratorates’ cases and other major matters. It said this figure was an increase of 19% over the first quarter.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate published a book titled “Guidelines for the Investigation and Evidence Collection in Handling Cases of Duty Crimes by Procuratorial Personnel in the New Era.” It is the first normative guidance on the investigation and collection of evidence relating to duty-related crimes.
Hong Kong
The national security department of Hong Kong police is investigating the family members of two exiled Hong Kong democracy activists who are wanted by authorities, according to the South China Morning Post. Former lawmaker Dennis Kwok and union leader Mung Siu-tat are among eight exiles for whom police obtained arrest warrants on July 3 on suspicion of violating the National Security Law. Over the past week, police questioned family members of Kwok and Mung. The newspaper quoted an unidentified source as saying that family members were suspected of assisting the fugitives to continue activities that endanger national security.
A Hong Kong court gave a three-month prison sentence to a man who used the protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” in a 94-second video clip posted on YouTube. Photographer Cheng Wing-chun was convicted of insulting the national anthem in violation of Hong Kong’s National Anthem Ordinance. Cheng was the first person to stand trial for violating the law. The government is seeking a permanent court injunction against the song’s use. The Hong Kong Journalists Association, which had expressed concern about journalists falling foul of the injunction in carrying out their work, issued a statement this week saying it would no longer seek to intervene in the proceedings after the justice department promised to include an exemption clause for journalism activity.
Japan
The Supreme Court overturned a lower court decision that said employers who re-hire staff after they reach mandatory retirement age cannot reduce their base pay by 40% or more. The two plaintiffs in the case, who worked for a driving school in Nagoya, said that after their mandatory retirement, they were rehired for the same jobs as before, but at only 40-50% of their previous base pay. Such practices are not rare in Japan. The district court and high court in Nagoya ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, but the Supreme Court vacated the decision and sent the case back to the high court for reconsideration.
Koreas
The Constitutional Court upheld the constitutionality of 2020 reforms that changed the way proportional representation seats are allocated to parties in the National Assembly. Forty-seven of the legislature’s 300 seats are allocated through proportional representation, while 253 are directly elected. The reforms had the effect of increasing the seats held by minor parties. The court rejected petitioners’ claim that the new system violated voters’ right to direct elections.
The 76-year-old mother-in-law of President Yoon Suk Yeol, Choi Eun-soon, was taken into custody after an appeals court upheld a one-year prison sentence imposed on her for forging a bank document and using it to purchase land in 2013.
South Korea said it would challenge an arbitration ruling that ordered it to pay US hedge fund Elliott Investment Management $108.5 million in a case involving the 2015 merger of two Samsung Electronics affiliates. The Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague found in favor of Elliott in June. South Korea argues the tribunal lacked jurisdiction.
The family of renowned late painter Chun Kyung-ja lost their battle to have a court declare that a painting in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art was not Chun’s work. The museum first claimed in 1991 that Chun painted “Beautiful Woman,” but she denied it. After Chun’s death, her daughter sought to prosecute the museum for defamation and other charges, but prosecutors declined to do so. The family then brought several claims against the prosecutors, which Seoul Central District Court rejected.
An appellate court upheld the 20-year prison sentence given to a university freshman convicted of causing a female schoolmate to fall from a school building to her death while attempting to rape her. The court dismissed a separate charge of murdering the victim by willful negligence, saying that “it is difficult to recognize intentionality in the crime.”
Taiwan
A panel of three professional and six lay judges convicted a woman of murdering her husband in Taiwan’s first criminal case tried under the Citizen Judges Act (國民法官法) that took effect on Jan. 1. The act provides for mixed collegiate panels to hear some types of criminal cases as a means of empowering ordinary citizens and increasing confidence in the courts. Taiwan, which has a civil law system, does not have juries. In this case, the defendant stabbed her husband in his sleep. She said she was under mental duress due to chronic abuse by the victim.
Prosecutors in Taoyuan are investigating two police officers after a botched sting operation resulted in a 13-year-old girl being sexually assaulted. The girl had gone to police after a man she met online tried to coerce her into having sex. Police asked her to meet with the man so they could shadow her and arrest him, but were unable to keep up when she got into the man’s car. They subsequently arrested him and a court convicted him of attempted solicitation of a minor and creating obscene digital recordings of a minor.
The Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association (台灣諮詢熱線協會) and Taiwan Equality Campaign (彩虹平權大平台) released their annual survey on workplace conditions for LGBTQ+ in Taiwan. Among 1,307 valid responses to an online questionnaire, more than half said their workplaces did not have gender-friendly measures. Only about 10% of respondents’ corporate workplaces have established “explicit LGBT-friendly policies” or “have provided LGBT-friendly education and training.” More than 60% of respondents said that a company’s climate on LGBTQ issues would affect whether they work there.