April 23, 2015
Eager to get a ruling in a long-running case where she was the plaintiff, the lawyer Cui Hui jammed her foot against a security door in a courthouse near Beijing to stop it from closing and Judge Lai Xiulin from escaping.
There are many such doors in Chinese courtrooms, often toward the rear, and often of solid steel. They offer a safe zone for judicial personnel in a system that even the government says is beset with error, and where frustration at corrupt or politicized rulings may erupt in violence.
To get rid of Ms. Cui, Judge Lai hit her and pushed her to the ground, said her fellow lawyer Liang Xiaojun, relaying an account by Ms. Cui. Another judge, Yang Yu, ordered the court police to join in the beating, leaving her badly bruised, Mr. Liang said, citing Ms. Cui. Photographs said to be of Ms. Cui circulated online showing damage to her eyes and a bruised face and limbs.
Outraged, scores of lawyers signed a statement protesting the April 2 incident at the Tongzhou District People’s Court, and last week the Beijing authorities said they would would investigate. Court officials reached by telephone declined to comment. A faxed request for information went unanswered.
In China’s justice system, the security door has become a symbol of the antagonism between the people and the law.
‘‘In Cui Hui’s case, the judge used the security door to protect himself from a lawyer. Often it’s to protect the judge from plaintiffs or defendants,’’ Mr. Liang said in an interview in his office in west Beijing.
In a similar case this week, unidentified people in the central city of Hengyang beat several lawyers as they tried to cross a security barrier into a courthouse to pursue allegations of torture in police custody. Again, lawyers signed a petition protesting the assault.
‘‘Security doors are very common in courts here. Judges don’t feel safe,’’ nor are they respected, Mr. Liang said. ‘‘Social conflict is running high, and it’s often expressed in courts. Any judge who makes an unpopular decision is believed to be corrupt. And litigants can be very unreasonable. They don’t understand the law and may react violently.’’
So tricky has exercising the law become that judicial personnel are fleeing their jobs. The result is a shortage of qualified judges, according to Chinese news reports.
“Judge Shortage, Court Panic” was the title of an article in Southern Weekly. Another, by Xinhua, the state news agency, detailed judges’ three main complaints: low salaries, lack of respect and a sense of physical security.
The airing of the problem comes as officials try to ‘‘rule the country in accordance with the law,’’ a policy announced last year.
As citizens increasingly turn to the law to resolve disputes, the government is trying to stop judges from quitting, including mandating five- or 10-year terms of service and allocating just two 15-day periods a year during which judges may resign.
In March, Mu Ping, president of the Beijing Higher People’s Court, was quoted by Xinhua as saying that in the last five years ‘‘more than 500 people have left the courts.’’
‘‘Beijing’s ‘judge wastage’ is a serious phenomenon,’’ Mr. Mu said. It was especially apparent at the lower-level courts: ‘‘Things are down to the bone, and the speed of departures is increasing,’’ Mr. Mu added.
