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court before the charge is prepared and they are ready to be brought to court.
The second reason why I mentioned the co-operative law on lawyers co-operatives is that this would give the Chinese lawyers who are in these co-operatives an independence that they have not had before, both formally as well as psychologically. And some of the younger people have said this to us after a more formal discussion that this is something they agree they are looking to producing significant change in lawyers attitudes in their defence of their clients, in their work for citizens.
Mr MacKellar: Just one other point that I would like to add too that I think is an interesting development and, that is, that in the intellectual levels there is beginning a debate about what is meant by human rights and whether there is only collective human rights which is the general line put forward by the Chinese and individual human rights now are beginning to command some attention. We met a couple of professors at Peking University, one of whom had written and published an article extolling the virtues or pointing to the favourable aspects of some concentration on individual human rights in answer to an article written by another professor of law from another institution - I think the Public Information Office - and so the debate in China is starting to take off in relation to the whole question of individual human rights viz-a-viz collective human rights.
Question:: You mentioned the two provinces, Sichuan and Xinjiang, both told you they had executed a 110. Did this lead any members of the team to conclude what China watchers have long speculated and that is the provinces are in fact given a quota of people they will execute over the year?
Senator Schacht: No, I must say our estimation of the Sichuan figure came because when we asked the direct figure, we weren't given it, but then an official said, "Well, it is about 1 per million people" and they think the population of Sichuan province happens to be about 110 or just over a 100 (million). So, we estimate that that will be the figure. Again, in Xinjiang Province, the figure we were given was about a 100. Again, the actual, specific figure we got was: "Yes, three had been executed as a result of the Baren incident. Again, you can draw your own conclusions about that and we'll have to consider that ourselves about sums, whether there are quotas. I must say that the difference in population between Sichuan and Xinjiang is enormous. think one's a 110, one's 15 million. And those are the figures. People have to make their own estimate, but what we've been able to do is that compared to the last time we actually got closer to getting the figures even accidentally than the last time, other than in Beijing where it was: "No,
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