Adriana Amanti
How does the Chinese “rule of law” accommodate for cause lawyering and to what extent is cause (rights defense) lawyering effective within the constraints of the party-state of the People’s Republic of China? Amidst intensified pressure on “rights defense” (weiquan) lawyers in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Chinese authoritarian legalism has contributed to potent rights claims in the Chinese party-state. Despite sentiments that Western liberal-democratic constitutional systems are more appropriate frameworks for individual rights claiming, weiquan lawyers in the PRC have realized gains for their clients while also adhering to the Chinese Communist Party’s (hereafter “the CCP” or “the Party”) legal culture. Rights defense lawyers, often working independently, must navigate state-dominated channels and operate within the margins of the Chinese party-state’s legal institutions, constraining opportunities for effective rights litigation. Protracted regime insecurity, sparked by widespread student protests in 1989 that precipitated international condemnation and demands for China’s democratization, prompted the Party to legislate a series of administrative reforms in the 1990s.
