While a US State Department report says that Chinese lawyers defending criminal cases are often jailed on trumped-up charges, Beijing lawyer Xu Lanting has a working agenda filled with criminal defense cases.

Some 80 to 90 percent of lawsuits Xu have taken are criminal cases. And he has never been charged.

"I never feel that I am persecuted though there are difficulties and risks in defending clients in criminal cases," said Xu, the lawyer of Beijing-based Jun Ze Jun Law office.

The report, entitled "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2003-2004," was released Monday. It said that criminal defense lawyers faced risk of intimidation, harassment, detention and arrest in China.

"I am very sorry to say that what was said in the US report was neither true nor responsible," said Gao Zongze, president of the All China Lawyers Association (ACLA).

According to the ACLA, lawyers were indicted in 91 cases from 1997 to 2002 and in some 30 of them they were convicted whereas Chinese lawyers had defended their clients in more than 1.5 million criminal cases in those six years.

"Every lawyer who violates laws must be taken to court and those who violate vocational rules must be punished in China and so it is in the rest of the world," Gao said. "Someone was treated wrong but it did not mean everyone was treated wrong."

"I've learned some were charged or punished but that's not my experience," Xu said. "A lawyer must not violate laws -- I always warn myself."

"To protect the legal rights and interests of lawyers is one of the ACLA's most important tasks and we have made great efforts," Gao said.

The ACLA has a special committee to protect rights and interests of lawyers and every provincial branch has a similar department.

In 1997, criminal defendants in 209,984 cases were represented by attorneys and the number rose to 324,454 cases in 2003. It increased every year, the ACLA said.

The US report noted that criminal defense lawyers comprised 3 percent of all Chinese lawyers in 1999 and 1 percent now.

However, according to Gao, China has never categorized lawyers as criminal defense ones or civil ones and no such statistics have been made since there is no regulation in China to define who is a criminal defense lawyer.

"I don't know where the US government got these figures," he said.

In China a lawyer is free to choose what kind of clients to represent and many of them represent both criminal and civil defendants to fund their law firms.

China's legal system clearly protects the legal rights of lawyers though problems remain in its criminal procedures and relevant laws, said Prof. Chen Weidong from the Law School of the People's University.

The Chinese Constitution said the defendant has the right to be defended while the Law on Lawyers, taking effect in 1997, also included items elaborating their legal rights.

Lawyers are let in when a case is still under investigation after the Law of Criminal Procedures was amended in 1996. Before the amendment, they had been ruled out till the case was taken to the court.

"There is weakness in the country's criminal litigation. The procuratorate still has privilege. But I am confident that the situation will gradually improve," said Qian Lieyang, lawyer from the Beijing Zhongfu Law Firm.

The Supreme People's Procuratorate (SPP) of China has introduced a new regulation to protect lawyers' rights in criminal litigation in February this year while the Ministry of Justice also issued a regulation to ease the meeting between lawyers and inmates.

A regulation is being drafted by the Supreme People's Court, the SPP and the Ministry of Justice for the prosecuting attorneys to share evidence with counsels while the Ministry of Public Security is working on rules to smooth the procedure for lawyers to meet with their clients in custody.

(Xinhua News Agency May 19, 2004)