Aside from clauses forbidding judges to accept gifts or services from interested parties or their attorneys, the amendment also highlights a new arrangement to allow small claims for debts or damages to be handled more efficiently. All these stipulations are aimed at creating a litigation system that can better protect human rights.

In 2012, China launched court and procuratorate reforms in the railways, too, which is a relatively independent domain. Other sweeping judicial reforms have also been launched, including measures to improve the commutation and parole system, strengthen the work of judicial suggestion and set up a judge's oath system, all of which will help make the country's judicial system more open. In the prosecution domain, the reforms launched are aimed at improving the open review procedure of criminal cases and the archives query mechanism on bribery, and optimizing the risks prevention system for clean governance.

Reforms in the field of justice administration were also launched in 2012, and they ranged from promulgation of regulations on administrative detention and setting up of criminal records to measures to improve the community-based correction system and reform the controversial labor education system.

China published a white paper on its judicial reform in October 2012, reviewing its judicial system and reform process and expounding efforts to maintain social fairness and justice and protect human rights. On protecting human rights, the white paper generalizes the effective measures China's judicial bodies have been taking to deter and prohibit extraction of confessions through torture, better protect the rights of criminal suspects and defendants, and protect attorneys' right to exercise their duties.

Apart from stating China's approach of controlling and prudently applying the death penalty, the white paper also stipulates that measures should be taken to improve the State compensation system and set up a mechanism to offer assistance to victims of crimes.

No country can claim to have the best human rights conditions. And just like other countries, China too has to improve its judicial system. But foreign organizations and think tanks should not ignore the remarkable progress China has already made in judicial reforms and human rights protection.

The deliberate distortion of China's human rights record by Human Rights Watch to give the country a bad name will ultimately boomerang on the New York-based organization.

The author is a researcher at the School of Laws in Tianjin-based Nankai University.

(China Daily 02/16/2013 page5)