Every year, Chinese lawyers are required to get a special stamp on their lawyer’s license from their local lawyers’ associations, which effectively allows them to continue to practice for the next 12 months. 

This procedure has been the subject of debate in recent days, mainly because a prominent attorney, involved in several high profile cases involving wrongful convictions, is having some trouble getting that vital seal. 

The lawyer, Li Jinxing, recently made headlines in the case of Chen Man, a 53-year-old man who was set free in February after being wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for a murder he didn’t commit. He also offered legal assistance to Chen Xiaying, who was wrongly charged for kidnapping and murdering a 10-year-old boy in 1996. He was set free in May 2015. Nian Bin, who was wrongly convicted for having poisoned two of his neighbors to death, was released in August 2014, was also one of Li’s clients. 

Li is getting slightly anxious about delays in getting his license renewed. The issuance of the seal is under the purview of a local lawyers’ association, which falls under the justice department.

“The approval procedure used to take just a couple of days, but this year it has been more than a month since my law firm first filed the application for me in early April. Two applications have both been denied so far,” Li told Sixth Tone on Monday. “My lawyer’s license is going to expire by the end of this month.”

Born in 1973, Li has been a licensed lawyer based in Jinan, Shandong province, for 13 years. 

When reached by Sixth Tone on Monday, Huo Jianping, chairman of Jinan Lawyers’ Association, which is handling lawyer Li Jinxing’s qualification approval work, said Li is not the only attorney who has not passed this year’s check so far. “Every year, there are quite some lawyers who fail to get their qualification renewed,” he said. “The reasons vary a lot.”

Huo declined to elaborate, saying it was “inconvenient” to do so.

Setbacks faced by Li have sparked wider debate on the necessity for government involvement in the annual check of lawyers’ qualifications.

According to China’s main law governing lawyers, law firms are obliged to check the qualifications of their attorneys on an annual basis and report their findings to the local justice department. However, that department doesn’t have the power to “approve” or “deny” lawyers the right to practice.

Citing that law, Li Jinxing said it’s illegal for the justice departments to refuse to stamp a lawyer’s license after their law firm has already approved their qualifications.

Shanghai-based attorney Deng Xueping said the fact that justice departments are carrying out direct evaluation of lawyers’ qualifications has been called into question. He told Sixth Tone such a practice has developed into a powerful weapon for authorities to control lawyers. “Lawyers have been discouraged from handling ‘sensitive’ cases,” Deng said.

Gao Fuping, dean of the School of Intellectual Property at Shanghai’s East China University of Political Science and Law, said it’s essential that the authorities continue with the existing annual checks. 

“It’s important for the justice departments to get an overall idea of the basic information, like the number of lawyers, the common challenges they encounter in their professional practices, and the complaints some might have received,” Gao told Sixth Tone.

According to him, the system is fair. “Whether one will fail the check or not depends simply on if they have adopted any illegal methods in their practices, or if their behavior has infringed upon the interests of their litigants,” Gao said.

Negotiations in Li’s case are still underway, but he remains optimistic about his prospects and said he hopes to get a new stamp before the end of May.

(Header image: A lawyer, holding his lawyer’s license, waits to enter a courtroom, Beijing, March 23, 2010. Han Meng/VCG)