Correction

I posted earlier about the new Lawyer Law, in particular about its provisions on monitoring. As some commentators have identified, this provision conflicts directly with a companion provision in the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows the Public Security Bureau to monitor meetings between prisoners and their attorneys. A China Law Listserv commentator and Chinese Law and Politics editor pointed out that the Criminal Procedure Law may trump the Lawyer Law because the former was passed by the National People's Congress, and the latter by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. Granted, the Ministry of Justice evidently has said that the Lawyers Law will take precedence over the NPC statute, but that's a difficult argument to make to the Public Security Bureau, which has a large set of regulations governing this subject, particularly when they're the ones holding the keys to the cell block.

In any event, I just thought I would clarify my earlier post.