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by law," and "the accused shall have the right to defense.” This latter provision formed the basis for the establishment of legal advisory offices attached to courts and staffed by people's lawyers, who in addition to performing all sorts of advisory and mediative work, were also empowered to defend both civil and criminal defendants, including counter-revolutionaries, in court.
What followed during the next three years until the late spring of 1957 seemed very promising at the time. Work was begun on a series of codes, legal education was greatly expanded, law journals began to appear which by late 1955 were discussing a wide range of topics with increasing frankness. For example, in 1955, the majority of the articles published in the most important of these journals, Zhengfa yanjiu, were of a simple informative or propaganda nature. The remainder were divided between articles on Soviet law, which were important in providing acceptable precedents supporting reform, and articles dealing with practical problems such as how to prepare documents, the meaning of legal terms, investigative procedures, and questions involving the marriage law and inheritance. While none of these articles were particularly controversial in nature, they did indicate a move toward professionalism. By 1956 and through the first half of 1957, however, many articles began dealing with such highly sensitive issues as what constitutes evidence, particularly the place of confessions, the proper attitude of the court toward the defendant (one writer even called for presumption of innocence), the use of analogy, the need for Party and state organizations and functionaries to obey the law, and various problems of procedure.
In spite of the increasing demand for professionalism in judicial work and liberalization of the legal system, none of these articles faced up to the basic problem of Party control over the courts. This had to await the revitalized "Hundred Flowers Movement" in the late spring of 1957. Following Mao's February speech, "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," the Party Central Committee urged non-Communists to voice their criticisms of Party work in order to assist the Committee in eradicating the three evils of bureaucratism, subjectivism, and sectarianism. In late May the Chinese Political Science and Law Association organized a series of forums for the stated purpose of giving the judicial circles in Beijing an opportunity
103
by law," and "the accused shall have the right to defense.”s This latter provision formed the basis for the establishment of legal advisory offices attached to courts and staffed by people's lawyers, who in addition to performing all sorts of advisory and mediative work, were also empowered to defend both civil and criminal defendants, including counter-revolutionaries, in court.
What followed during the next three years until the late spring of 1957 seemed very promising at the time. Work was begun on a series of codes,' legal education was greatly expanded, law journals began to appear which by late 1955 were dis- cussing a wide range of topics with increasing frankness. For example, in 1955, the majority of the articles published in the most important of these journals, Zhengfa yenjiu, were of a simple informative or propaganda nature. The remainder were divided between articles on Soviet law, which were important in providing acceptable precedents supporting reform, and articles dealing with practical problems such as how to prepare documents, the meaning of legal terms, investigative procedures, and questions involving the marriage law and inheritance. While none of these articles were particularly controversial in nature, they did indicate a move toward professionalism. By 1956 and through the first half of 1957, however, many articles began dealing with such highly sensitive issues as what constitutes evidence, particularly the place of confessions, the proper attitude of the court toward the defendant (one writer even called for presumption of innocence), the use of analogy, the need for Party and state organizations and functionaries to obey the law, and various problems of procedure.
In spite of the increasing demand for professionalism in judicial work and liberalization of the legal system, none of these articles faced up to the basic problem of Party control over the courts. This had to await the revitalized "Hundred Flowers Movement" in the late spring of 1957. Following Mao's February speech, "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," the Party Central Committee urged non-Communists to voice their criticisms of Party work in order to assist the Com- mittee in eradicating the three evils of bureaucratism, subjectivism, and sectarianism. In late May the Chinese Political Science and Law Association organized a series of forums for the stated purpose of giving the judicial circles in Beijing an opportunity
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