July 23-29
China
A draft Criminal Law Amendment (XII) was submitted for review to the National People's Congress Standing Committee. The amendment increases the penalties for bribery and adds provisions to punish corruption-related crimes committed by private enterprise personnel. Public comments on the draft may be submitted through August 24, 2023.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate released major case statistics for the first half of 2023. Prominent among them: 90% of criminal cases were disposed of through the new guilty plea system and 99% of prosecutors’ sentencing proposals were accepted by courts.
The Supreme People’s Court released a regulation on including persons with special knowledge as people’s assessors when adjudicating environmental cases (关于具有专门知识的人民陪审员参加环境资源案件审理的若干规定). Persons with expertise in the environmental field and a minimum of three years of experience may join trial panels in criminal, civil and administrative cases under the new rule.
The Third Intermediate People’s Court of Beijing held an appellate hearing for Kris Wu Yifan (吴亦凡), a Chinese-Canadian pop singer who was convicted last November of rape and group lewdness and sentenced to 13 years in prison. The first instance court found that Wu engaged in sexual acts with three females in his home when they were intoxicated and had no ability to resist. Wu appealed. The appellate court did not immediately announce a decision.
The former Communist Party chief of the city of Hangzhou, Zhou Jiangyong (周江勇), was convicted of bribery and sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. The Chuzhou Intermediate Court of Anhui Province found that Zhou accepted more than 182 million yuan ($25.49 million) directly or through family members from 2001 to 2021. The court also ordered that Zhou be deprived of political rights for life and that all his personal property be confiscated.
Lu Siwei (卢思位), a Chinese rights lawyer who lost his license in 2020 after taking on sensitive cases, was arrested in Laos by Laotian police while boarding a train for Thailand. Lu’s family members and other activists expressed fear he will be deported to China and face prosecution. Chinese authorities had imposed an exit ban on Lu.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s High Court rejected a government petition to ban the performance, publication, or distribution of the 2019 protest song Glory to Hong Kong with criminal intent, including online. Hong Kong has a law criminalizing insults to China’s national anthem but the government told the court that an injunction against the song was needed to protect the national anthem from insult. International sports competitions have mistakenly played Glory to Hong Kong as the city’s “national anthem” on several occasions. Judge Anthony Chan said the government failed to show how a civil injunction would assist in enforcement of a criminal statute, and said it could have a chilling effect. The government sought the injunction after Google refused its request to adjust its search results so that a search for “Hong Kong national anthem” would show only the official Chinese anthem.
A retired man who is accused of playing a musical instrument in public and soliciting donations without the necessary permits argued in court that his right to do so is protected by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Art. 34 of Hong Kong’s Basic Law. Li Jiexin, who represented himself in Shatin Magistrates’ Courts, was accused of playing the erhu with an amplifier on four occasions in 2021 and 2022, including playing the song Glory to Hong Kong. The prosecution told the court that the song was seditious. The government has declined to expressly criminalize the song but has sought to suppress it in various ways.
The Hong Kong Public Opinion Research Institute, one of the city’s most reputable pollsters, said it would stop releasing the results of polls on politically sensitive questions, such as views about China’s use of the army in1989 to suppress protests in Tiananmen Square and independence for Taiwan.
Retail giant Hennes & Mauritz AB, owner of H&M stores, has sued its Chinese rival Shein in a Hong Kong court for copyright infringement. According to a court document, H&M alleged a “striking resemblance between the products showing they must have been copied” and the “sheer scale of (Shein’s) unauthorized substantial reproduction of the copyright works.” Shein, founded in China in 2008, has swiftly claimed a top place in the global fast-fashion marketplace.
Japan
The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights began a 12-day first official visit to Japan on July 24. The experts are assessing efforts to identify, prevent, and address adverse impacts of business operations on human rights and the environment. They will present a report to the Human Rights Council in June 2024.
Koreas
The Ministry of Justice said it will create a new bureau, tentatively titled the International Legal Affairs Bureau, to handle disputes with international investors and strengthen the government's ability to respond to international legal disputes. A total of 10 investor-state dispute claims have been filed against the Korean government, and five are still pending.
Seven government agencies combined forces to create a joint virtual asset crime investigation unit with 30 investigators to investigate cryptocurrency-related crimes. The new unit will help enforce a law that was passed last month and takes effect next year to protect crypto investors. Among other things, the unit will watch for abnormal cryptocurrency trading, including backdoor listings, price manipulation, and pyramid selling.
The Fair Trade Commission, South Korea’s antitrust regulator, fined the Korea Music Copyright Association 340 million won ($266,000) for abusing its market dominance by overcharging broadcasters. The commission also said that the association exerted pressure on broadcasters, threatening to ban the use of its music if they failed to comply with its demands.
The Constitutional Court overturned a parliamentary effort to impeach the interior minister to hold him responsible for crowd control failures that resulted in 159 persons being crushed to death in Seoul last Halloween. Lawmakers voted in February to impeach Minister Lee Sang-min. The court ruled that Lee had not neglected his duties. It found that the minister made inappropriate remarks about how the disaster unfolded, but said the comments did not amount to grounds for impeachment.
Taiwan
The Legislative Yuan amended the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法) with the aim of protecting the rights and interests of sexual harassment victims in educational settings. The revised law will be promulgated on March 8, 2024. Amendments to the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法) and the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法) will be put to a vote on July 31, 2023, the last day of an extraordinary legislative session.