Courts Slow to Throw Illegally Collected Evidence Out of Trials

(Beijing) — Torture has been legally banned from police interrogations and a rule for excluding from trials evidence that is collected illegally is in place, but lawyers in China have had difficulties getting such evidence thrown out of court.

Criminal defense lawyer Tian Wenchang is one attorney who has recently been told by a court he cannot get certain evidence thrown out of a trial. Tian, founder of the King & Capital Law Firm in Beijing and director of the criminal case committee under the All-China Lawyers Association, was the lawyer for Li Jiaming, a man who was charged with murdering his girlfriend in 2002 when they both studied in Canada. Li was sentenced to life in prison in China in 2012, but later appealed.