China: Amendments to Law on Lawyers is a big legal move

Of the amendments to the Law on Lawyers adopted at the session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress at the weekend, the stipulation allowing a defense lawyer to meet a criminal suspect without approval from a judicial department is the most noteworthy. This is even in conflict with the stipulation in the Criminal Procedure Law, which explicitly requires that a defense lawyer must have approval from the judicial department before meeting a criminal suspect. The criminal procedural law is said to be under revision and the revised version is expected to be in conformity with the amendment to the Law on Lawyers. The new amendment also says that conversations between a lawyer and his client will not be monitored and neither will whatever a lawyer says in defense of his or her client in court be used as evidence leading to his or her prosecution.

China: Amendments to Law on Lawyers is a big legal move news.xinhuanet.com Tue, Oct 30, 2007