d that there were efforts in court to intimidate them. (China Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1999). However, the Chinese Government has also stated, "the Chinese judiciary deals with every complaint of torture promptly after it is filed, and those found guilty are punished according to law" (Muzhi Zhu). For the first time in 1998, as part of its campaign to address police abuse, the government published national torture statistics, along with 99 case studies, in a volume entitled "The Law Against Extorting a Confession by Torture." The book, which was published by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, stated that 126 people died during police interrogation in 1993 and 115 died in 1994. Incidentally, most cases of torture are believed to go unreported (China Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1999). Perhaps one of the most shocking things in the Chinese human rights debate deals with the corruption within the court system. Official government statistics report that there are some 230,000 persons in reeducation-through-labor camps, sentenced to up to 3 years through administrative procedures, and not by a trial (China Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1999). The Chinese Constitution states that the courts shall, in accordance with the law, exercise judicial power independently (Muzhi Zhu). However, this has not been the case because the judiciary is subject to policy guidance from both the government and the Communist Party. It has been found that at both the central and local levels, the government and the CCP frequently interfere in the findings of the judicial system and take a hand in deciding court decisions (Amnesty International. “China, violations of human rights). Another problem is that judges are appointed by the people's congress at the corresponding level of the judicial structure, which can lead to an undue influence by local politicians over the judges they appoint(Amnesty Internati...
