August 11-17
China
The Ministry of Civil Affairs released a draft regulation on marriage registration for public comment through September 11, 2024. The draft makes marriage registration easier by lifting the requirement that couples register at the place of their household registration or hukou, which may differ from their place of residence. It retains the mandatory 30-day cooling-off period for consensual divorce, a system created by the Civil Law. An online survey of 50,000 netizens found that more than 70% of respondents believe a cooling-off period would be more suitable ahead of marriage than ahead of divorce.
News emerged that a long-running LGBT couple’s child custody battle has ended with a Beijing court effectively recognizing that a child can have two mothers. The litigants were two Chinese women who married in the US in 2016. Each subsequently gave birth to a child using the eggs of only one of the women. The couple later returned to China and separated, and the woman who donated the eggs denied the other woman access to the children. According to The Guardian, the Beijing court ruled in May that the second woman is entitled to regular visits with the child whom she bore, even though she is not genetically related to the child. She was denied the right to visit the other child.
The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP), the All-China Women's Federation and the China Working Committee for the Care of the Next Generation (中国关心下一代工作委员会) jointly published six typical cases illustrating the use of “family education guidance” to prevent minors from committing crimes or becoming victims, or to support them in cases of parental neglect. The SPP reported that since the family education guidance (家庭教育指导) system was established in 2021, procuratorates nationwide have issued 72,000 supervision orders to parents or other guardians who have been deemed neglectful in some way.
A man who reportedly was dissatisfied with the outcome of his lawsuit seeking compensation for a traffic accident has been accused of killing the district judge who heard his claim. Judge Wang Jiajia of the Yancheng District People's Court in Henan Province was found dead in the underground parking lot of her residential compound.
The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress formally halted deliberation of two bills that it first reviewed in 2022 but failed to advance: a draft Compulsory Civil Enforcement Law (民事强制执行法) and a draft authorization for the State Council to carry out certain rural land reforms. The NPC Observer explains the relatively new procedure.
Hong Kong
The Court of Final Appeal (CFA) upheld the convictions of seven pro-democracy activists, including former Apple Daily publisher Jimmy Lai, for their roles in a peaceful but unauthorized protest march in August 2019. Last year, a lower court acquitted them of the charge of organizing the assembly but upheld their convictions for participating in it. The defendants argued on appeal that the court should conduct a proportionality assessment as prescribed by UK precedents. A panel of five CFA judges unanimously ruled that the British cases were not applicable.
A few days later, one of the five judges - David Neuberger, former president of the UK Supreme Court and a part-time non-permanent judge on the CFA - resigned from the advisory board to an international media freedom group. Neuberger said he did not want his role as a Hong Kong judge to detract from the work of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom. The panel advises the Media Freedom Coalition, a partnership of countries committed to media freedom.
The Court of Final Appeal allowed former radio presenter and activist Tam Tak Chi to challenge his sedition conviction and 40-month prison sentence. It will be the first time the CFA hears a challenge to the British-era sedition law, which was replaced in March by the Safeguarding National Security Ordinance. The appeal focuses on whether sedition as a common law offense requires intent to incite violence and whether the district court has jurisdiction over such cases. Proceedings in other sedition cases, including prosecution of two Stand News editors, have been postponed pending the outcome.
A court handed down an eight-week prison sentence to a 20-year-old man for joining in a sing-along demonstration in a shopping mall on June 30, 2020, hours before the National Security Law took effect. Isaac Lee, then 16, was briefly arrested at the time for unlawful assembly. He subsequently went abroad to study, while others who joined in the sing-along were prosecuted. Lee returned to Hong Kong last month and was arrested at the airport.
The High Court agreed to review the legality of the government’s approval of plans to develop a large-scale technology hub near the border with Shenzhen. Critics say the proposed San Tin Technopole will destroy important wetlands. The legal challenge was brought by Eddie Tse, convenor of the Save Lantau Alliance.
Japan
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced that he will not seek a new term as president of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in September, meaning that a new party leader will replace him as prime minister. Because the LDP controls both houses of the Diet, whoever wins the party's leadership election becomes prime minister. Public support for the LDP has waned due to a corruption scandal. Kishida, who took office in 2021, said the party needs to present a new face and regain public trust.
Koreas
South Korea's Health Ministry said it will unveil measures soon to help medical schools deal with a much larger incoming class in the coming school year. The government controversially ordered medical schools to accept 1,500 more students - an increase of about 50% - to end a nationwide shortage of doctors. In response, trainee doctors began a strike in February that still continues. The trainees say the surge in numbers will undermine the quality of medical education.
Taiwan
Law enforcement agencies conducted a series of raids in multiple cities to crack down on financial crimes including alleged stock market manipulation, financial fraud, underground banking, and falsification of corporate capital. A total of 150 cases were investigated, 69 different locations were searched, 421 suspects were brought in for questioning, and more than NT$3 billion was seized during the raids.
A member of the Control Yuan, Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠), called for a new investigation of a 1987 incident in which Taiwan soldiers killed more than 20 Vietnamese refugees whose boat came ashore in the Kinmen (Quemoy) archipelago. Kao published a report on the killings two years ago based on interviews with soldiers and government archives, but said important information remained undisclosed. Vietnamese who believe their relatives were among those killed joined Kao at a press conference. The victims, including women and children, were ethnic Chinese fleeing Vietnam. Four officers were convicted in 1988 in the killings, but their sentences were suspended.
In a mixed ruling, the Taipei High Administrative Court reaffirmed that an official diagnosis of gender dysphoria is required for transgender people to change their gender on ID cards, but also ordered the Registration Office to reconsider the application of a transgender woman who has declined to obtain a medical diagnosis. The woman and the Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights, which supports her, argued for depathologizing being transgender.