China: On Crackdown Anniversary, Draft Law Requires Party Loyalty for Lawyers

July 9, 2026 Comments Off

Lawyers persevere “through the thorns” despite pressure, restrictive new rules

(Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders—July 9, 2026) Chinese authorities are proposing an amendment to the Lawyers Law that threatens lawyers’ ability to ensure access to justice. Lawyers will be required to “uphold the leadership of the Communist Party of China” and its “socialist rule of law,” while law firms will have to “establish CCP organizations under the Party constitution.” The National People’s Congress published the amendment on June 26.

The proposed change comes just days before the 11th anniversary of Chinese authorities’ unprecedented detention and disappearance of more than 300 human rights lawyers and activists that began on July 9, 2015. Officials targeted that community, whose members had become instrumental in defending human rights activists, helping mitigate the possibility of torture and ill-treatment of prisoners of conscience, and pressing for greater legal reform.

To mark the “709 Crackdown,” as it has come to be known, CHRD surveyed eight lawyers in China in July 2026 to learn about the authorities’ current efforts to limit lawyers’ ability to defend their clients. The lawyers range from early-career to veteran practitioners, and some were directly affected by the crackdown, including being questioned by authorities. All are quoted using pseudonyms.

Lawyer Chen expressed deep concern about the proposed amendment requiring lawyers to follow CCP ideology, describing it as “unprecedented,” and noting that in the past such a demand applied only to Party members. Chen assesses that the amendment is one of several recent methods the government has used to assert greater control over lawyers who take on human rights or other cases it deems “sensitive.”

Several of the lawyers observed that the authorities’ repression strategy over the past two to three years has relied less on physical violence and more on surveillance, license revocations, and pressure applied through law firms.

Lawyer Lin explained how authorities exploit the process of lawyers transferring between firms or provinces, which requires a lawyer to de-register before re-registering elsewhere. “They [the authorities] wait for the lawyer to de-register, then withhold approval for the new registration, and the lawyer loses the license as a result,” Lin said.

Chen also spoke about authorities’ efforts to isolate attorneys from one another. Online chat groups formed by lawyers were disbanded by the platform almost as soon as they were created, without warning or explanation. Chen added that making contact with the outside world — including foreign diplomatic missions in China — carries high risk, pointing to the case of rights lawyer Yu Wensheng as an example. Plainclothes police in Beijing detained Yu and his wife, Xu Yan, in April 2023 while en route to a meeting with EU officials. They were convicted in October 2024 of “inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced to three years and one year nine months, respectively. Xu was released in January 2025, and Yu in April 2026, but authorities are preventing them from leaving the country.

“Being cut off from contact with other lawyers and with the outside world made me feel powerless and fearful,” Chen said.

Authorities have stripped at least 20 lawyers of their licenses and sanctioned 26 more in the years since the 2015 crackdown, including forcing lawyers to leave their law firms due to official pressure, depriving them and their families of income. In the ongoing prosecutions against members affiliated with unregistered Christian congregations, Beijing authorities in January 2026 disbarred lawyer Zhang Kai, who represented pastor Jin Mingri, the founder of Beijing’s Zion Church.

Authorities also use hierarchy and peer pressure to make life harder for a lawyer after a transfer. They may warn the new firm against hiring a particular lawyer, or ask its owner to “pay extra attention” to a particular lawyer and weigh the risks that person could bring to the firm, said Lawyer Wu, adding that such targeted pressure makes one feel “depressed.”

“Summonses, warnings, harassment, punishments, and license revocations—that’s always been the authorities’ playbook to control us,” Lawyer Li said. “But the worst part is turning lawyers into informants, having them monitor and ‘manage’ their own colleagues.”

As a result, human rights lawyers are increasingly forced to keep a low profile, avoiding attention in order to continue representing their clients.

“We’ve moved away from the old days of banding together, when one call could rally everyone — now it’s more of a solo effort,” lawyer Yang said, describing the shift since the 709 Crackdown. “But the dedication to rule of law, and the reasons we started, haven’t changed.”

All the lawyers surveyed raised the same concern: collective punishment aimed at their family members and loved ones. “My family lacks a sense of security. If they can’t reach me by phone, they call everyone they know,” Chen said. “I feel extremely apologetic that my family suffers from this pressure.”

Despite the pressure, all of the lawyers surveyed said they have continued their work. “I need to be worthy of this profession — if none of us take on these cases, it will be the shame of 800,000 practicing lawyers in China,” Lawyer Huang said. “There’s no rule of law in these [human rights] cases,” Wu added, stressing the need for lawyers as a means of protecting clients from deprivation of fair trial rights. “I’ve seen firsthand the cruelty behind the machinery of power.”

The lawyers surveyed shared one final concern: that their work and their colleagues’ sacrifices is fading from public view, particularly in the face of state censorship. Marking the 11th anniversary of the 709 Crackdown, they hope people will remember. As Yang said,

“Let people know that there was once a group of legal professionals who fought to protect their clients’ rights, only to be ruthlessly suppressed by authorities under the guise of law. Let them see the grim reality of a legal community being steadily weakened — but also see that some legal professionals are still pressing forward through the thorns.”

For more information, please contact:

Sophie Richardson, Co-Executive Director, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, sophierichardson[at]nchrd.org, +1 917 721 7473

Shane Yi, Researcher, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, shaneyi[at]nchrd.org