When elite members of the Chinese Communist party gather for a policy-setting meeting focusing on the rule of law next week, their ranks will be thinned by an obscure party procedure that overrides the law of the land.
The Fourth Plenum opening on Monday is billed as the platform for judicial and other reforms to make the governance of China more rules-based. Expectations range from hopes that Xi Jinping, party chief and China’s president, will force through a fairer legal system with less interference from local vested interests, to scepticism that “rule by law” can be a priority for a regime that has cracked down on political rivals, domestic critics, internet commentators and the press.
But the delegates who will gather in Beijing already answer to a higher authority – the Communist party, whose rules trump national laws. The party’s extrajudicial power to detain and investigate its own has been in full effect this year, the second of a sweeping crackdown on endemic corruption.