December 17-23
China
The SPC issued a public announcement (关于征集人民法院案例库参考案例的公告) to clarify the future transparency of court judgments after weeks of speculation triggered by a leaked document. In its announcement and separate Q&A, the court said that it is launching two new digital case archives:
a People’s Courts Case Archive (人民法院案例库) with cases selected for their reference value, which will “of course be open to experts and scholars, lawyers, litigants, and other members of the public (当然要向包括专家学者、律师、当事人等在内的社会公众开放)”; and
a National Court Judgments Archive (全国法院裁判文书库) that will exist on a court system intranet (在四级法院专网内).
The existing publicly accessible database China Judgment Online (中国裁判文书网), which was launched in 2014 and has more than 143 million judgments, will continue operating but with stricter management to protect national security and parties’ privacy rights. Some Chinese law scholars have expressed concern that the SPC is backtracking from the goal of judicial transparency.
The Supreme People’s Court (SPC), the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Ministry of Justice jointly issued an opinion on handling drunk driving criminal cases (关于办理醉酒危险驾驶刑事案件的意见). Compared with a judicial opinion issued in 2013, this new document raises the threshold for treating drunk driving as a crime and provides clearer guidance for sentencing. Dangerous driving offenses accounted for 18.2 percent of all prosecutions in 2022.
The former president of the Beijing Intellectual Property Court, Su Chi, was convicted of bribery and sentenced to 10 years and six months in prison as well as fined 800,000 yuan ($112,000). Su became vice president of the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People's Court in 2013, and became president of the Beijing IP Court a year later. He was placed under investigation in August 2022.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong’s High Court began the long-delayed national security trial of former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai on December 18. A three-judge panel rejected a bid by Lai’s lawyers to get the sedition charge thrown out on the grounds that prosecutors failed to bring the charge within six months of the alleged offense, as required by law. The trial then adjourned until January 2, 2024. The US, UK, and European Union all condemned the trial, and Matthias Kaufman, deputy head of the EU Office in Hong Kong and Macau, watched the trial in a courtroom extension. China’s Foreign Ministry said that Lai was “the major mastermind” in the city’s 2019 “anti-China riots” and “an agent and pawn of the anti-China forces.”
A government lawyer told an appeals court that the protest song “Glory to Hong Kong” has been mistaken for the city’s national anthem more than 800 times and amounts to a weapon that people use to threaten the authorities. The Hong Kong secretary for justice is appealing a High Court decision last July that rejected the government’s request for a sweeping ban of the song. The Court of Appeals judges adjourned the hearing until February 24, 2024.
A Hong Kong court sentenced Marilyn Tang, sister of labor union leader Elizabeth Tang, to six months in jail for removing a laptop and mobile phone from Elizabeth Tang’s home following her arrest on national security charges. Marilyn Tang pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice. Elizabeth Tang, who was chief executive of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions, has been accused of collusion with foreign forces.
A Hong Kong court rejected the latest bail application from Chow Hang-tung, vice-chairperson of the now-disbanded Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriot Democratic Movements. Chow is awaiting trial on charges of incitement to subversion in connection with the alliance’s activities. Until 2020, the group organized annual vigils to mark the army attack on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing on June 3-4, 1989.
Japan
A court ordered the governor of Okinawa to approve a modified plan to build runways for the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma on reclaimed land, an early step in a plan to relocate the station from a crowded neighborhood elsewhere on the island. The ruling by the Fukuoka High Court Naha branch allows the Land and Transport Ministry to order work at the planned relocation site, overriding the governor’s disapproval. Local residents have protested against the construction plans.
Tokyo prosecutors searched the offices of two powerful factions within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as part of an investigation into a fundraising scandal. Prosecutors suspect the Abe faction of failing to report up to 500 million yen ($3.5 million) in funds over five years and the Nikai faction of failing to report 100 million yen ($700,000). The scandal has eroded public support for the LDP and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's government, forcing him to replace key cabinet ministers in an effort to limit the fallout.
Koreas
The South Korean Supreme Court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel Corp. to compensate wartime Korean workers or their surviving relatives for forced labor: four plaintiffs in Mitsubishi’s case and seven in Nippon Steel’s case. The same court in 2018 ordered the two companies to compensate a different group of plaintiffs with similar claims. The Japanese government said the decision violates the1965 Japan-South Korea Claims Agreement and is unacceptable.
The South Korean Supreme Court dismissed a woman’s claims for compensation for alleged sexual harassment and abuse of power by a former senior prosecutor. Seo Ji-hyun, herself a former prosecutor, triggered a nationwide #MeToo movement when she made her claims in 2018 against Ahn Tae-geun, who was convicted and sentenced to prison. But the Supreme Court overturned Ahn’s conviction, and now has denied Seo a civil remedy.
The Seoul Central District Court issued an arrest warrant for Song Young-gil, a former leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Korea, over a cash-for-votes scandal. Prosecutors suspect Song used illegally obtained funds to buy votes in the party’s leadership election in 2021, which he won. Song has denied the allegations.
A South Korean religious sect leader whose sex crimes were featured in the popular Netflix series “In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal” was sentenced to 23 years in prison. The Daejeon District Court convicted Jeong Myeong-seok of sexual violence against three of his female followers from 2018-2021. Jeong, 78, is leader of the Christian Gospel Mission in South Korea, which is also known as Jesus Morning Star.
Prosecutors are seeking a five-year jail term for former Justice Minister Cho Kuk during his appellate trial. The Seoul Central District Court convicted him in February of various charges involving corruption and abuse of power, and sentenced him to two years in prison. Cho was a celebrity law professor at Seoul National University, served as senior presidential secretary for civil affairs from 2017 to 2019, and was minister of justice for about a month in 2019 before charges were brought against him.
South Korea’s Cabinet approved an increase in parental leave benefits for working parents in an effort to boost the country’s birth rate.
Taiwan
The legislature passed a law to counter espionage targeting its military facilities. The new law lists forbidden activities around defense facilities, including taking pictures or videos if doing so creates a security risk, conducting unauthorized surveys or measurements, or engaging in any other reconnaissance activities. The military will be authorized to shoot down or disable drones flying over a military base.
Taiwan and Canada signed a bilateral investment treaty. Taiwan said it hoped the deal will boost its chances to join the regional Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Canada holds the rotating chair of the CPTPP in 2024.
The legislature amended the Status Act For Indigenous Peoples (原住民身分法) to allow persons with only one indigenous parent to register for indigenous status. Taiwan’s Constitutional Court ruled last year that a provision of the law granting indigenous status based strictly on their family name was unconstitutional. That ruling also upheld the right of adopted children to seek indigenous status. Taiwan’s indigenous population is rising and amounted to about 2.5% of the population at the end of 2022.
The legislature amended the Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) to add a penalty of at least seven years in prison and a fine for discharging a firearm in public. Firing a gun in public was not previously treated as a criminal offense under the Criminal Code. The amendment also adds penalties for manufacturing, selling, transporting, or transferring replica guns or their parts. It follows police seizures of new kinds of modified guns that have been involved in incidents that resulted in casualties.