A Beijing court, in an unprecedented decision in August, found journalist Zhao Yan not guilty of leaking state secrets to his employer, the New York Times. Then, recently, in another surprise action, a court in Linyi City in Shandong Province quashed a guilty verdict against blind activist Chen Guangcheng.

What’s going on here? Have China’s courts, notorious for being under the thumb of the Communist party, received a sudden injection of backbone and started issuing independent rulings?

Unfortunately, no. Both decisions probably represent attempts by the party to combat bad international publicity. Besides, in both cases the defendants are still in jail, and there is no certainty that they will be released anytime soon.

In the Zhao Yan case, although the court dismissed the charge of leaking state secrets, it sentenced him to three years in prison on an unrelated charge of fraud, which was tacked on months after his arrest two years ago on the state secrets charge.

According to Jerome A. Cohen, a New York–based expert on Chinese law who gave a series of talks on Chinese rule of law issues in Hong Kong a few weeks ago, the fraud charge was a “fig leaf” that was added when it became obvious that the government lacked evidence on the state secrets charge.

As for the Chen case, even though the appellate court threw out the guilty verdict, it did not order the release of the blind “barefoot lawyer” but rather ordered a retrial of charges that the sightless man had damaged property and organized a mob to disrupt traffic. So the case will again be heard by a local court in Yinan County, Shandong Province, where judges are beholden to local officials who can hire and fire them.

In fact, the courts remain one of the weakest institutions in China. Often, judges are merely officials who can be hired and fired like other bureaucrats and, because they owe their jobs to local governments, almost always rule in favour of their employers.

If China is to develop genuine rule of law, what is needed besides independent judges is independent lawyers.

This is recognized by the international community but, it seems, not by China. The Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1990, state: “Governments shall recognize and respect that all communications and consultations between lawyers and their clients within their professional relationship are confidential.”

The principles also stipulate that governments have the duty to ensure that lawyers can fulfill their functions without fear of harassment or improper interference.

Another United Nations principle states: “All arrested, detained, or imprisoned persons shall be provided with adequate opportunities, time, and facilities to be visited by and to communicate and consult with a lawyer, without delay, interception, or censorship and in full confidentiality.”

However, the Chinese government is acting in a manner that is patently contrary to these United Nations principles.

This is clear from a new rule that all lawyers in the country are meant to observe, issued in March by the All-China Lawyers Association, which is controlled by the Ministry of Justice. This rule, called a “guiding opinion”, requires lawyers, after accepting a “collective case” involving at least 10 people, to promptly “discuss the case fully” with the “relevant judicial departments” and to “honestly report the situation” to them and “actively assist the judicial organs to clarify the facts”.

Clearly, this rule seeks to turn lawyers into instruments of the state whose duty is to betray their clients’ confidences.

There have been widely publicized cases of lawyers who have been punished for simply trying to do their job. Lawyers from Beijing who went to see their client Chen Guangcheng were beaten up and detained.

Former lawyer Zheng Enchong’s licence was revoked and he was sentenced to three years in prison for “illegally providing state secrets abroad” because he helped hundreds of victims of forced eviction stemming from urban redevelopment in Shanghai and sent information to international organizations.

Human-rights lawyer Gao Zhi ­sheng was deprived of his licence to practise law and is now being detained for unspecified “criminal activities”.

If China wants to be seen as a responsible player on the international stage, it must first put its house in order. The Chinese government cannot afford to flout such basic international norms as the right of accused persons to timely and confidential legal advice and the right of lawyers to represent their clients without being intimidated or harassed by the government or its hired thugs.