Chinese understanding of law, however, generally favours substantive rather than procedural justice. Several prominent Chinese lawyers and legal scholars have tried to draw attention to the importance of procedural justice. In 2003, a number of leading Chinese legal scholars openly criticised the conviction and death penalty for organised crime boss Liu Yong following revelations that he had been tortured. Public opinion, however, was not supportive. With the case of Yang Jia, executed in 2008 for killing six police officers, the public identified with a more sympathetic victim. Although there was no doubt about Yang’s guilt there was deep public disquiet that he had been convicted and executed unfairly.29 Yang’s case brought to light previous injustices at the hands of the Shanghai police and a public perception that his violence against the police was the result of earlier abuse and frustration. Rather than let justice be seen to be done, the public reacted with anger at the speed with which the authorities convicted and executed Yang.30 The case of villager, Jia Jinglong, who, in 2015, killed the village chief who ordered his home demolished, similarly, attracted considerable public sympathy. Despite widespread criticism, including from legal scholars, lawyers and the media, that the sentence was too harsh, Jia was executed in 2016. Lawyers within the rights-defence (weiquan) community have been particularly forthright on the lack of judicial independence and have criticised Chinese Communist Party (CCP) influence on trials. Chinese lawyers have also noted that defendants are given harsher sentences if the case involves the death of a city enforcement official. Jia’s execution suggests an unwillingness on the part of the authorities to bow to public pressure. It may not be a coincidence that a crackdown on China’s ‘rights defence’ lawyers was initiated in July 2015, largely silencing more vociferous advocates of procedural justice and the rights of the downtrodden (see Chapter 5 for more detail on the treatment of lawyers). Although the Criminal Procedure Law makes no explicit reference to a fair trial, the SPC’s Implementing Guidelines on the law (2013) do include potential violations of the right to a fair trial as one of the grounds on which the SPC may decide not to approve the death penalty. Nevertheless, lawyers report that they cannot bring up fair trial rights in their written submissions or defence statements. Any appeal to the right to a fair trial must be made with reference to a specific provision in Chinese criminal law. Successive UN High Commissioners for Human Rights and a wide range of UN independent experts have criticised the lack of transparency surrounding trials and the administration of justice in China as well as the tendency to rely on confessions which may have been coerced. Courts and the Communist Party China’s constitution states that courts exercise their power of adjudication independently and are not subject to “interference by any administrative organ, public organisation or individual” (Art.131). In Chinese law, it is the court, as a collective institution, that is supposed to be independent and not 29 Lan Rongjie. ‘A False Promise of Fair Trials: A Case Study of China’s Malleable Criminal Procedure Law.’ Pacific Basin Law Journal Vol. 27. 2011. 30 ibid 34