2014-12-04
Judges from Bengbu Intermediate People’s Court swear an oath to mark China’s first Constitution Day in Bengbu city, east China’s Anhui province, Dec. 4, 2014.
ImagineChina
Dozens of prominent rights lawyers have signed an open letter calling on the ruling Chinese Communist Party to uphold the rights and freedoms enshrined in the country’s constitution, activists said this week.
The letter had garnered more than 100 signatures, more than 60 of them members of China’s embattled legal profession, its author told RFA ahead of China’s first-ever National Constitution Day on Thursday.
“We wish to see our constitution taken seriously, and protection for human rights and the right of citizens to go about their business in peace to be taken seriously,” the letter, penned by rights lawyer Wang Quanping, said.
“This should be the Chinese dream,” it said, in a reference to President Xi Jinping’s slogan for the country’s future.
But it said simply setting aside a day in the calendar to honor the idea of the constitution isn’t enough.
“If there is no system to oversee its implementation, and those who are in breach of the constitution aren’t investigated and brought to justice, then the constitution will remain outside the legal system,” the letter said.
“In such circumstances, the constitution is just a piece of paper filled with empty words, and the Chinese dream becomes the Chinese nightmare,” it said.
“The authority of the constitution is turned to waste paper.”
Wang said the letter was signed by a broad cross-section of Chinese society.
“There people from as far away as Xinjiang, there are teachers, drivers, waiting staff and barkeeps, university students and office workers,” he told RFA. “It’s really very broad.”
A serious matter
According to Wang, China’s civil servants and Communist Party members are becoming more serious about the importance of the constitution.
But much more remains to be done, he said.
“Nowadays, Chinese civil servants must take an oath to uphold the constitution, which is a very good thing,” Wang said. “But I think this is still rather symbolic.”
“People won’t really respect the constitution, and it won’t really have any authority, until the government actively pursues constitutional rule,” he said.
“There are far too many instances of actions that are in breach of the constitution; far too many to count,” he said.
He called on China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) to play an active role in enforcing the principles of free speech and human rights enshrined in the 1980 document.
“Without investigations into those who breach it, the constitution is useless,” Wang said.
Staging a protest
In Beijing on Thursday, several hundred people with long-running complaints against the ruling Chinese Communist Party were detained after they staged a protest outside the headquarters of state-run broadcaster CCTV, Shanghai-based activist Zhu Jindi said from within the unofficial Jiujingzhuang detention center on the outskirts of Beijing.
