By Jerome A. Cohen

Thus far the focus is appropriately on the health challenges and the extent to which they have been exacerbated by the repression of free speech, publication, assembly and demonstration. Less attention has been given to the relevance of the legal system that is called upon to enforce health regulations and associated government orders. Indeed thus far we only get occasional glimpses of the role of law and legal institutions in the unfolding drama.

The summoning, humiliation and intimidation of Dr. Li Wenliang and presumably seven colleagues by the Wuhan Public Security’s neighborhood police station turned attention to the frequent but usually low visibility means by which police enforce the minor offenses law, the Security Administration Punishment Law (SAPL, zhian guanli chufa-fa). It authorizes the police alone to suppress a broad range of vaguely defined offenses that are not deemed to be “crimes” and therefore not subject to the formal protections of the Criminal Procedure Law that involve the procuracy (prosecutors) and the courts. The SAPL, which accounts for many more punishments each year than the criminal process, is a major vehicle for low level, low visibility police oppression. Its maximum penalty, 15 days of detention (juliu) for each offense, is usually very unpleasant since shared with many others in uncomfortable and unsanitary conditions.

Nevertheless, as Dr. Li’s case demonstrates, actual formal detention is often unnecessary since an informal “chat”, a stern warning and insistence upon the summoned suspect’s signing a statement of apology and vow to reform is the condition for release. As Dr. Li told the NY Times: ”I felt I was wronged, but I had to accept it.”

It is interesting that Xi Jinping himself, in responding to his felt need finally to respond to Dr. Li’s death, not only did not dispatch another top notch medical team to investigate but also did not send down the type of joint law enforcement team composed of police, prosecutors and judges that the central Party apparatus has traditionally relied on to investigate local abuses. Instead, Xi invoked the resources of the new and all-powerful Supervisory Commission established in 2018, an agency unlike any other in contemporary Communist systems that is not subject to the legal constraints of the traditional criminal justice agencies. Although the media continue to describe it as an “anti-corruption” committee, its jurisdiction ranges far and wide to embrace any violations of what may be deemed to constitute “Party discipline”, whether or not those investigated may, like Dr.Li, be Party members.