A legal adviser to China’s top lawmaking body has accused lower level governments of fuelling the backlash against the country’s strict Covid controls by breaching the law while implementing Beijing’s policies.
This week the country moved to speed up the easing of restrictions following a series of protests last month in major cities around the country prompted by a deadly fire in Urumqi , the capital of Xinjiang, that killed 10 people. The city authorities have denied that Covid restrictions hampered rescue efforts.
Jiang also accused some local governments of trying to avoid criticism for injuries and deaths caused by excessive Covid controls by shifting the blame to the lowest levels of responsibility. “There are documents and internal guidance given to local authorities to implement daily Covid prevention measures, but these documents are not accessible to the public.
Wei also said the Emergency Response Law, which includes provisions for responding to epidemics, requires Covid controls to “correspond to” the harm caused by the disease and protect citizens’ rights. “While the law does also pay lip service to the protection of individual rights in emergencies, it neither imposes meaningful limits on what the state can do nor provides effective means for citizens to enforce their rights,” Wei said.