The Chinese legal system’s top accomplishment for 2016 is putting human rights lawyer Zhou Shifeng behind bars, according to Chief Justice Zhou Qiang.
The Chief Justice praised the Chinese courts in an annual report submitted to China's rubber-stamp legislature. He commended the Chinese legal system for severely punishing crimes against the country’s security and violent terrorism, pointing to the “severe punishment” given to human rights lawyer Zhou Shifeng.
Zhou Shifeng’s Fengrui law firm was renowned for taking politically sensitive cases, defending dissident scholars, sexual abuse victims and religious minorities. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for "the crime of endangering state security."
The lawyer’s imprisonment last August provoked international human rights group to make criticisms against China.
Zhou Shifeng’s case was the only one explicitly stressed in the Chief Justice’s report. It was part of the prevalent attack against human rights lawyers and activists.
The crackdown began in July 2015. As of today, the majority of the hundreds imprisoned are still waiting for a verdict.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s long-running anti-corruption fight was also praised during Zhou Qiang’s address. 45,000 corruption cases involving 63,000 people were heard in Chinese courts in 2016. The number of cases has increased from 34,000 cases.
The Chief Justice also emphasized on how the Supreme People's Court had heard 23,000 cases in the previous year. In these cases, 1,076 defendants were not found guilty. The figures are not in line with China’s 99.92 percent conviction rate.
To conclude, Zhou asserted on how China had only issued the death penalty on "an extremely small number of criminals for serious offenses." He did not give further details on the numbers as the data is treated a state secret.
However, according to human rights observers, the number of people executed in China exceeds the number of executed in the rest of the world combined.
Criticisms from around the globe continue to come to the Chinese legal system and its head, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang.