Summary or Arbitrary Executions has identified a number of consular responsibilities including the need for consular services to maintain contact with and monitor the detainee’s legal representation. She also recommends funding resource counsel to support any State-appointed or pro bono lawyer and funding a lawyer where no such assistance is available. There is a lack of information on the situation of foreign nationals facing the death penalty in China. A number of reported cases raise concerns about politicised sentencing (see Chapter 1). Legal aid in death penalty cases The Criminal Procedure Law (Art.34) states that the police, procuratorate and courts shall notify the legal aid agency to provide a lawyer in cases where a criminal suspect or defendant faces the possibility of life imprisonment or the death penalty and they have not appointed anyone to defend them. Legal aid centres, under the local administrative level of the Ministry of Justice, are responsible for the provision of legal aid, either directly through lawyers working for the centre or, more commonly, through law firms contracted by the legal aid centres. Chinese lawyers and legal scholars report three sets of problems with the current provision of legal aid in death penalty cases: poor quality representation; the appointment of lawyers; and inadequate levels of funding. These problems are interrelated. Poor quality representation In the majority of law firms, particularly those located outside the main cities, lawyers are general practitioners. Since the subsidy provided in legal aid cases is very low, many law firms give such cases to young and inexperienced lawyers. In submissions to The Rights Practice, lawyers report cases where the defending lawyer had no prior experience with a death penalty case and no expertise in taking serious criminal cases. One young lawyer wanted the procuratorate to remove all the photographs of the dead body from the case file to avoid viewing distressing images. One young lawyer wanted the procuratorate to remove all the photographs of the dead body from the case file to avoid viewing distressing images. Lawyers and the families of some defendants have also described their experience of legal aid lawyers who show little interest or motivation in the case. Poor families describe resorting to borrowing money from relatives in order to pay for the services of a lawyer rather than rely on legal aid. Appalled that the legal aid lawyer appointed to defend her husband had met him just once for 20 minutes, Xu’s wife sold their old home to pay privately for a lawyer.34 Where a case involves political interests, such as the killing of a police officer or other state agent, the defendant’s family will worry that a government appointed legal aid lawyer will be under pressure 34 Private communication with authors. 42