【 CCBE人權奬－#鄒幸彤 致謝辭全文】
Acceptance speech of CHOW Hang-tung of CCBE Human Rights Award#CCBE -Council of bars and Law Societies of Europe
https://www.ccbe.eu
小編：佩服在獄中的她，仍可寫出如此長篇的謝辭，情理兼備，建議大家花點時間，細心閱讀，並留言與幸彤交流彼此想法。【有意留言交流的讀者，請移步小彤群抽會：https://www.facebook.com/ChowHangTungClub】
___________________
*This paper was originally written in English. English version shall prevail in case of discrepancy. 文章以英文版本為準。
**Please scroll for English version 英文致謝辭在後
關於「基於規則的秩序」
On Rules-based Order
1. 一名囚犯獲得由其他律師授予的獎項，這實在有些諷刺。當一個誓言要為法律服務的人被指控違反法律卻因而受到表彰時，這其中必然有某種嚴重的問題。也許這是一個好機會，藉此反思律師與法律的關係，或者更概括地說，反思基於規則的秩序──無論是國家還是國際秩序。
2. 身為法律專業人士，我們接受的訓練是關於法律應該如何存在的──作為正義與自由的公正守護者，扎根於真理與平等，透過民主精神得以實行。基於對法律的這種理想化概念，我們建立理論和實踐，包括專業規則、標準和原則，藉以理解法律，與之互動。然而，這猶如在神話上建構我們的實踐。
3. 現實世界遠非令人愉快的地方，大多數人並不活在正義或接近正義的情況下。他們必須忍受壓迫而非保護他們的法律。他們被那些他們無法參與制定或塑造的法律所剝削。那些使他們窒息的法律從來不會觸碰到精英階層。人們對法律的體驗是它真實的面貌，而非它應該是的樣子──正如那些高尚的原則往往是金玉其外，敗絮其中。
4. 對於那些不滿足活於神話中的律師來說，我們應該如何對待現實中的法律？如果憲法賦予某個政黨絕對的領導地位，效忠法律是否代表我們要接受一黨專政？當一條法律經由黑箱作業，突然對群眾實施，你是接受抑或拒絕？當你清楚知道一些毫無意義且繁瑣的法規只是選擇性地強加於不受歡迎者時，你會接受漠視法律還是堅持平等執法？當法律明文規定的權利在現實中被踐踏，而放棄這些權利會更加安全時，你會建議委託人服膺於現實的法律還是應有的法律？這便是我和我的同行每天都在面對的現實。
5. 將法律偶像化的，當然不只是律師。
6. 當今世界各地的政治人物普遍反覆強調一個觀點：需要維護一個「基於規則的國際秩序」。不是基於權利，不是基於價值觀，而是基於規則。也許「規則」的概念看起來較少政治色彩、更中立、較少引起分歧，民主派和獨裁者都可以接受。但這正正是問題所在——獨裁者也喜歡這種說法，因為基於規則的秩序同樣能夠為他們所用。
7. 規則或法律並非自主運行，而是依賴於制定、解釋和執行它們的人。它們並非神聖、絕對的真理，而是習慣和偶然、設計和監督、抱負和卑劣的產物。最終，法律是權力的表述。由不公正權力支撐的法律可能帶來最恐怖的噩夢，更別說要治癒這個充滿苦難的世界。
8. 歷史上充滿了法律罪行的例子。最多壓迫的國家往往不是失敗到要放棄法律和秩序的，反而是善於利用法律將社會推至不堪境況的國家。
9. 大屠殺的發生並非因為缺乏規則，而是因為那些規則是由納粹制定的。種族隔離制度並非自然秩序，而是由少數白人強行實施規則的結果。數百萬維吾爾人被拘禁並非因為隨機的報復，而是透過大量的規則和法規執行的系統性政策。在我的家鄉城市，北京政權單方面實施的國家安全法使我的許多朋友──學者、立法者、律師、記者、工會組織者和社會運動人士──成為「罪犯」；他們一直奉公守法，只是在繼續做他們視為自己責任的事。
10. 正如一個公正的體制一樣，不公正的體制同樣需要規則來運作和延續。事實上，規則往往可以為不公義提供制度合法性，透過官僚效率和冷漠使惡行得以大規模實施。
11. 當中國的防火長城變成有法律依據的生活日常，很少人會繼續認為它是一種嚴重侵犯人權的行為。然而，這座用於封鎖自由信息的龐大基礎設施，每天都在侵犯數十億人接收資訊、表達和溝通的權利。在產出了一個佔世界人口六分之一的被控對象以後，它為虛假信息與偏見的扎根和傳播提供了堅實的基礎，這反過來又在中國境外帶來審查資訊的壓力，並侵害各種辯論。然而，科技公司——當地和外國的公司都是一樣——毫不猶豫地參與這個全球最大的思想控制行動，因為他們總是可以說他們只是「遵從法律要求」。由此，法律成為安撫我們的良心 、麻痺我們惡行的藉口。
12. 「規則就是規則」，官員如是說，法官如是說，監獄長如是說。房間裡的大象在冷笑。究竟是誰制定了這些規則呢？
13. 問題不僅只是制定惡法的惡人。問題是，法律要如何應用於現實世界？
14. 當某條法律明顯有令人厭惡的目的時，我們可以輕易指出問題，並提出要廢除甚至違抗這條法律。但是，這種道德明晰的情況相對少見。更常見的情況是對合法法律的不當濫用。
15. 在香港，成千上萬的抗議者目前因為殖民時代的公共秩序法律－不是北京制定的法律－被拘禁。警方最喜歡用來打擊言論自由的武器，是一條早已廢棄的英國法律，即煽動法。上個月，一名手持標語的男子在山上拍照，後來因涉嫌違反保護郊野的規定而被捕。我們還看到反洗錢法被引用為拒絕向非政府組織和異議份子提供銀行服務的理由，有關外國代理人的法律被濫用以扼殺和詆毁維權組織，防火和建築安全法規成為騷擾支持民主的商店和團體的武器。
16. 反洗錢、公共秩序和防火安全等法律在任何法律體系中都有其位置。但是，法律並不是自主，而是由人執行並且遵守的。在一個權力向政權傾斜的社會中，權力不平衡必然會腐蝕法律的執行。當國家權力無法被制約時，整個法律體系就會受損，將問題歸咎於一些不好的法律只會無補於事。
17. 同一枚硬幣的另一面，是所謂「好」法律的無力感不斷增加，其中最重要的是人權法。是的，我們的憲法在很大程度上採用了《國際公民權利和政治權利公約》，但這並未能使公民社會免受持續打壓。官員一邊宣稱尊重權利，另一邊卻肆無忌憚地踐踏權利而沒有受到懲罰。如果沒有人致力並且擁有權力去實現這些權利，人權法只不過是法典上的裝飾。
18. 獨裁者對於公開「承諾」崇高原則並不感到太過顧慮，因為他們並不受這些原則的約束。他們不會讓承諾限制行動，而是利用言辭來限制現實如何被感知，使得他們的「正義」永遠不會被動搖。在新疆並不存在強迫勞動；酷刑的指控是外國的宣傳；34年前那個命運多舛的日子在天安門廣場上什麼都沒發生。當法律站在國家這一邊，異議的聲音和事實很容易被鎮壓、詆毀並從視野中消除。正如我要從監獄中說這番話，以及大多數中國人永遠不會知道為什麼許志永和丁家喜被監禁，甚至沒有聽說過他們的名字。
19. 在國內的免責權力會轉化為國際上的免責。在一個建立於主權國家概念的世界秩序中，某國政府的全球行動只有在國內存在有效的約束力時，才會受到限制。因此，中國政府並不羞於加入，甚或自己提出聽起來頗具崇高理念的國際關係規則，因為幾乎沒有人——尤其是其自身人民——能夠追究其責任。它可以提議建設「人類命運共同體」，同時摧毀其人民的每一種共同體意識，制造最孤立的社會。它可以吹噓要在所謂的全球文明倡議中尊重多樣性，同時運行一個粗暴的審查機制，對文化和宗教少數群體進行嚴厲打壓。它可以提倡可持續發展，同時阻礙所有基層群眾監測環境問題的努力。它主張國際機構的民主化，但同時實施更加極權主義的控制。它敦促尊重人民對自己國家治理體系的選擇，卻從未給予其人民這個選擇權。儘管如此，我們看到越來越多的國家，從智利到尼日利亞，從塞爾維亞到印度尼西亞（印尼），甚至聯合國秘書長古特雷斯表示支持習近平提出的這些「重大全球倡議」。
20. 當其他國家簽署中國這些看似善意的倡議時，他們應該意識到自己並不是參與真誠的、相互諒解的原則，而是參與一場重新塑造現實的宣傳活動。這些倡議的力量不在於它們的內容，而在於它們的「追隨者」數量。越多人附和這些陳述，提出者的聲望就越高，他們對現實的解讀就越可信。言辭的形式變得至關重要，而言辭本身卻失去了意義。實際上，這就是全球規模的哈維爾（Havel）的小販故事。
21. 如果問題僅僅是關於空洞的承諾和濫用的條文，我們也許可以挽救基於規則的秩序。我們只要指責那些違規者，等待機會重新啟動那些被忽視的條文。對嗎？
22. 如果規則的含義完全改變了，那就不可能了。
23. 香港的經驗再次是一個警示。過去幾年來，許多最嚴重的侵犯人權行為都經法院批准或執行，這並不是因為法官突然忘記了我們的人權法。其實是，這些法律以嚴重侵犯人權的方式重新詮釋，並依照新的論述隱晦地調整詞語和概念的含義。
24. 例如，「國家安全」這個概念過去有一個頗為明確的範疇，被國際公認為限制權利的正當理由。然而，自從國家安全法推出以來，這個詞語的涵義變得越來越寛廣和偏頗。一位普通市民發表的意見如果與黨的觀點有矛盾，她／他也可能被視為威脅國家安全，在沒有審訊的情況下被無限期羈押。權利和制衡的語言仍然存在，但實質上已經完全改變。對於「國家安全」這個詞語意義的轉變，司法體系很少有反彈；相反，司法體系以尊重為名，將黨對這個詞語的敘述照單全收，並以一連串案例使之更穩固。
25. 由此，我們看到在民主體系下制定的合理法律原則——比如尊重或者強調立法意圖——被移植到非民主體系時，可能會產生的矛盾和不公。國家安全法等法律背後的「立法意圖」是相當清楚的，如果一個源於普通法傳統的獨立法院真心地認為其使命便是實現這種意圖，那麼即使是一個「獨立法院」也會淪為黨的意旨的執行者。
26. 在類似的脈絡下，經由對「暴力」一詞更加寬鬆的解釋，和平抗議的範圍不斷被壓縮，導致數以千計示威者即使本身沒有任何暴力行為，僅因出現在或靠近暴力現場便被判處長期監禁。雖說「和平」示威的權利仍然受到尊重，但另一方面急救人員和調解人員也被視為「暴徒」，判處監禁多年。在界定仇恨言論範疇的問題上，也有類似的趨勢，批評甚至是諷刺也往往被視為等同於煽動仇恨。實際上，根據新香港的標準，你現在聽到的內容便很可能被歸類為那個模糊的「煽動仇恨」範疇，因此並不享有言論自由的保護。
27. 因此，雖然表面上我們仍然使用源於國際條約和先例有關權利的語言，實際上法院對權利的理解和國際標準之間出現了巨大的鴻溝。詞彙及其意義最終都是可塑的，而法官如何理解詞彙和構建論述也不可能奇蹟般地隔絕於廣大社會。事實上，恰恰相反：如果法院不在公開持續的對話中與社會進行關於正義和權利等重要原則的討論——透過由市民和律師提出和辯護案件、構建論點、指出不公、批評或讚揚重要判決，健康的法律論述便無法實現。如果這樣的對話基本上是自由和民主的，我們便也許能夠接近正義；但如果這樣的對話受到妨阻，或者被黨派利益所困，甚至專橫的國家所控制，法律論述就會受損。
28. 我已經提及，但在這篇簡短的演講中無法充分探討黨國影響司法推論的種種方式。意義和詮釋的轉變不是一夜之間發生的，因此更難以察覺和抵制。每一步都建立在上一步之基礎上，我們沿著看似合理的法律依據，踏著以為無害的腳步，一步步走到一個完全無法辨認的地方——在那裡監獄滿是良心犯。強調我們司法仍然「獨立」實際上無關痛癢；黨國根本不需要對個別案件進行舊式的、明確的指示，因為政治控制已經滲透到社會的每個角落。公開的干預實際上是最後的手段，也是失敗的象徵。當「獨立」的法院「自願」監禁異見人士並摧毀公民社會時，還有什麼需要干預的呢？
29. 香港所發生的事情並非偶然事件，而是一個警示。黨重新定義詞語並扭曲其意義的權力並非只限於中國。在冷戰時期，人們可以識別和對抗明確的共產主義的意識形態和措辭。然而，今天的中國卻在使用相同的自由主義語言，談論權利、民主與和平。當然，關鍵的差異仍然存在，但被一系列令人心安的詞語所掩蓋。對於我們這些生活在黨的統治之下的人來說，我們當然知道這些熟悉的詞語在黨的用語中有著截然不同的含義。權利不是關於個人可以要求國家做甚麼，而是賦予國家權力保障人民「權利」。民主不是關於公民通過自由結社、表達和選舉來向領導人問責，而是領導人通過受控的渠道「禮貌地」聽人民的聲音。和平是以各種方式順從黨的秩序，而不是拒絕戰爭或仇恨。
30. 隨著中國地位不斷提升，其使用和解釋詞語的方式無可避免地滲透到國際話語中。有時這是純粹的權力遊戲，例如迫使其他國家附和其提案和立場。在其他時候，這是一個實際的問題。如果希望與中國進行交流，就不能對其在對話中理解關鍵概念的方式輕忽對待。最近有媒體報導，美國有聲音呼籲美中領導人就如何定義「國家安全」達成協議——這看似是一個容包容分歧的明智建議，但看看黨在香港重新定義「國家安全」之後發生了什麼事？接著下來呢？他們是否應該繼續就如何定義人權甚至民主尋求一致的協議？將定義權力交給國家是一條危險的路，但當中國在玩這場遊戲時，其他國家也極受誘惑去跟隨。
31. 還有另一種黨語滲透方式，那就是通過我們自己的價值觀的邏輯。當中國政府提出像「和平、發展、公平、正義、民主和自由」這些「人類共同價值」時，它同時表達了與自由主義截然不同的觀點，只是使用了一種我們不能合理地拒絕的詞彙和邏輯。當然，我們不會否認民主和正義這些事物是重要、普及的價值觀，對吧？那麼，稱它們為「普世價值」或「人類的共同規則」，又有什麼問題呢？這當然是有問題的：以「共同價值」替換「普世價值」的協同努力，是試圖剝奪普通民眾表達價值觀的權力，並將其置於國家手中。雖然定義「普世價值」並沒有單一權威，但「人類的共同價值」是黨的資產，因此可以輕易地被塑造成黨所喜好的樣子，這與黨的許多看似善意的表述相同。當人們出於禮貌或冷漠而採用它們時，黨就在對意義的戰爭中贏得了另一個據點。
32. 隨著黨語越來越混入國際原則和規則中，危險的是這些原則的含義本身可能變得扭曲和混亂，失去概念上的連貫性，從而失去了設定標準、引導行為或傳達價值觀的能力。例如，所謂的「一個中國原則」幾乎成了一致的協議，實際上卻可以根據發言者而有各種意思。這種「規範」的主導地位既不能傳達共識，反而阻礙了真正分歧的清晰表達，進而危及解決分歧的努力。或者看看「一國兩制」原則——英國同意交還香港的基礎，即使實際上它正被違反，卻被說成正在被「更準確地實施」。當前對基於規則的秩序的最大威脅並不在於放棄現有規則的明確，而是對它的挪用和顛覆。基於規則的秩序的軀體可能會存在，但其靈魂可能已經消亡。
33. 談到基於規則的秩序如何讓我們失望，我當然不是主張我們完全放棄規則。相反，我認為我們應該停止假裝法律是獨立於政治之外的，或者認為一個律師的工作可以對社會上的權力關係視而不見。事實上，委託人、證人、陪審員和法官之間的互動都受到權力的影響。法律的文字只是一個骨架，是權力填補了空白並使其活起來，更不用說從一開始寫下法律的便是權力。法律在某程度上約束權力，但從來不能決定其行動。另一方面，權力也不能在沒有法律的情況下形成並對世界產生作用。從這個意義上說，所有有效的秩序——而不是無序——都必須以規則為基礎，除了權力意志可以直接調停一切的最小單位之外。因此，關鍵問題不是秩序是否基於規則，而是它基於什麼樣的規則，以及是什麼樣的權力驅動它。法律是人的骨架還是鯊魚的骨架？由此而來的秩序是一個與自身和諧共處的健康秩序，還是一個有翅膀一樣的手臂和一條萎縮的腿的科學怪人？但也許科學怪人其實是個善良的生物，而身體健康的人卻是個殘忍的殺人犯。
34. 如果我們追求的是一個公義的秩序，那麼我們必須致力於建立公義的權力分配，而不僅僅是崇拜規則。只有當權力真正共享時，法律才能成為社群的共同表達，而不僅僅是少數人的意志。只有當價值觀比武力更有力時，法律才能發揮作為一個理性的原則體系的功能，而不僅僅是一連串的粗暴命令。只有當法律忠實地表達了社群的價值觀，它才能得到成員的尊重和忠誠，而不僅僅引起恐懼和憤恨。
35. 社會中，誰和甚麼擁有權力實際上是緊緊相扣的。價值觀只有在權力相對公平地分配時才有力量。因為價值觀只有得到真心的承諾才有價值，否則它們只是為了別有用心的利益而裝飾門面。例如，儘管官方話語堂而皇之，「共產中國」的共產主義卻只是謊話連篇。良心的聲音只能來自內心，不能被下放或集中，所以只有當個體擁有權力時，良心才有力量。因此，只有在個體能夠分享國家權力，每個受法律影響的人都能根據自己的良心對法律認真的理解來判斷和塑造法律時，法律才能成為價值觀。
36. 法律作為價值觀並不是指一成不變的僵化原則，而是一場在平等基礎上進行的持續對話。因此，它必須容許不確定性和矛盾，並且不能保證成功或持久的協議。然而，從這樣的躁音生出秩序是自由主義實驗的偉大奇蹟，也是人類中存在普世價值的證明，是動態和多元秩序的根基。
37. 相反，當個體被奪去權力，且被龐大的國家機器或派系利益所支配時，法律不可避免地淪為權勢的展現。法律為權勢所用是需要良心或辯論的。事實上，培養服從、不問根由的「士兵」通常是積累壓倒性權力的快捷方式，並確保由此產生的「基於規則的秩序」的穩定性。
38. 隨著威權主義的崛起，面對風險的不是基於規則的秩序，而是在該秩序中價值觀的權威。基於價值觀的秩序不一定源自基於規則的秩序，這是那些一直生活在自由秩序下的人經常忽視的區別。重要的價值觀被鑄入基本法律文件後，法律作為價值觀和法律作為力量之間的鬥爭也並非一勞永逸就能解決的。相反，作為真正陳述價值觀的法律是一個罕見而脆弱的成就，只有透過來之不易的權力民主化才能實現，並透過致力於這些價值觀的人們的不斷努力和警惕來維持。換句話說，這取決於我們能否保持對價值觀對話的活力和包容——在這方面香港是失敗的。在那裡消失的不是基於規則的秩序，也不是表面上的自由主義憲法，而是自由價值觀在秩序的日常運作中的指導力量。如果我們不堅決捍衛我們的價值觀，這命運很可能降臨到更多人身上。我們必須將價值觀重新置於法律和政治的中心，而不是將它們視為理想主義者的古怪念頭而置之不理。毫無疑問而艱難的是，我們不能為了安撫獨裁者、取悅挑撥者、或者獲得物質利益而迴避在普世價值觀的內容和含義上進行具爭議性的辯論。那樣做只會使權勢勝過價值觀，且使價值進一步被侵蝕。從這個意義上來說，捍衛世界各地人民的權利不僅僅是幫助他人，而是一場定義我們自身和我們建立的秩序的戰鬥的核心。我們是真正的原則共同體，還是和隔壁的獨裁者一樣犬儒？我們是否真誠地致力於建立基於價值觀的世界秩序，還是只要我們站在贏的一方就心滿意足？
39. 就包容性而言，無可否認當前的國際秩序在很大程度上受到西方主導，因此距離法律作為價值觀的理想仍然相去甚遠。但改進的方法不是給予非西方的獨裁者更多發言權，這只會加深迄今仍是無聲者的沉默。相反，必須透過在各地建立民主來賦予一般民眾有權參與有關價值觀的對話。這又是一項困難且不無爭議的任務，當這樣的努力和團結跨越國界時，通常被譴責為「干涉內政」。然而，如果我們放棄對民主的追求，我們將永遠無望建立基於價值觀的公正國際秩序。
40. 作為律師，我們的專業在任何基於規則的秩序中都是必需的，無論好壞，公正或不公正。然而，法律專業的尊嚴並非在任何一種秩序中都能得以保持。相反，它與法律的尊嚴，與法律是否能反映我們的自主權是緊密相連的。從這個意義上說，建立能夠保衛法律尊嚴的民主制度也是律師的職責，這也是為什麼今天獲得這個獎項的三位，此時都因為在中國為民主奮鬥而被監禁。這場戰鬥可能看起來與我們的專業無關，但實際上是至關重要的。這是一場我們不能動搖的戰鬥，即使知道我們所服務的法律可能會懲罰我們。因為有時候去對抗現實的法律，是尊重應當存在的法律之唯一方式，也是一位律師能為同袍們獻上的最高敬禮。
#自由幸彤 #自由志永 #自由家喜
___________________________
** This paper was originally written in English. English version shall prevail in case of discrepancy. 文章以英文版本為準**
【 Acceptance speech of CHOW Hang-tung of CCBE Human Rights Award 】
關於「#基於規則的秩序」
On Rules-based Order
1. There is a certain irony in a prisoner of law receiving a prize given by lawyers. Something must have gone very wrong when one who pledged to serve the law receives recognition instead for allegedly breaking the law. So perhaps this is a good opportunity to reflect on the lawyer’s relationship with the law, or more broadly, the rules-based order – whether national or international ones.
2. As lawyers, we were trained on law as it should be – as impartial guardian of justice and freedom, grounded in truth and equality, enacted in a democratic spirit. We build our theories and practices, including professional rules, norms, and principles on how to understand and interact with the law, based on such an idealized conception of what law is. But this is akin to building our practice on a myth.
3. For the real world is a much less happy place; most of humanity do not live under conditions of justice or anywhere near it. They must live with law that oppress, not protect. They are exploited by laws that they have no say in making or shaping. Laws that suffocate them never touch the elites. The people out there experience the law as it is, not as how it should be – as high principles that sound good but taste bad.
4. For lawyers who are not content to live in a myth, how should we conduct ourselves with regard to the real laws? When the constitution mandates a Party’s absolute leadership, does allegiance to the law requires honouring one-party rule? When a law is secretly made and suddenly sprung on the populace, do you accept or reject its authority? When you know full well that senseless and burdensome rules are only selectively imposed on the disfavoured, do you console disregard of the law or insist on equal enforcement? When rights written into laws are in practice honoured in the breach, and when renouncing those rights is the surer path to safety, do you advise your clients on the law-as-it-is or the law-as-it-should-be? For this is the reality myself and my colleagues are living with, day in day out.
5. The idolization of law is of course, not limited to lawyers.
6. A common refrain by politicians across the world these days is the need to uphold a “rules-based international order.” Not rights-based, not values-based, but rules-based. Perhaps the concept of “rules” is seen to be less political, more neutral, less divisive. Agreeable to both democrats and autocrats alike. But herein lies the catch – autocrats like this formulation too precisely because a rules-based order can serve them just as well.
7. Rules, or laws, do not run themselves, but are dependent on people who make them, interpret them and enforce them. They are not divine, absolute truth, but rather creatures of habits and accidents, design and oversight, aspirations and baseness. Ultimately, laws are statements of power. Far from being a panacea for a troubled world, laws propped up by unjust power could bring about the greatest nightmare.
8. History is strewn with examples of the law’s crimes. The most oppressive state is seldom the failed state that abjures law and order, but a pervasive state that excels at using law to order society to unsavoury ends.
9. The Holocaust did not happen because of a lack of rules, but because of rules made by the Nazi. Apartheid was not a natural order, but the result of rules imposed by a white minority. Millions of Uighurs were not interned because of arbitrary reprisal, but because of a systematic policy implemented through a plethora of rules and regulations. And in the city I call home, a national security law unilaterally imposed by Beijing made “criminals” out of many friends of mine, who are scholars, legislators, lawyers, journalists, unionists and activists – namely, law-abiding citizens doing what they have always done, what they consider their duty.
10. An unjust system also needs rules to function and to perpetuate, just as much as a just system needs them. Indeed rules can often cloak injustice with a veil of institutional legitimacy, facilitating the implementation of evil at scale through bureaucratic efficiency and indifference.
11. When the Great Firewall of China becomes a routine fact of life backed up by the authority of laws, few continues to acknowledge it as the gross human rights violation that it is anymore. But surely this massive infrastructure to wall off free information is a daily violation of the rights to information, expression and communication of billions. Further, in producing a trapped audience that amounts to one-sixth of the world’s population, it provides a solid base for disinformation and prejudice to take root and spread, which in turn exports pressure to censor and poisons debates well beyond the Chinese border. Yet tech companies – local and foreign alike – are untroubled by their participation in the world’s largest attempt at thought control, since they can always say that they are merely “complying with legal requirements.” Law thus becomes an excuse to calm our conscience, numbing us to the part we play in evil.
12. “Rules are rules,” say the officials, say the judges, say the prison warden. And the elephant in the room snorts. Who made the rules, anyway?
13. The problem goes beyond bad actors intentionally making bad laws. It is also about how laws are applied to the real world.
14. Where a law is explicitly made for an objectionable purpose, we can easily point that out and say, let’s repeal this, or even, let’s disobey this. But situation of such moral clarity is relatively rare. More often, what we face is the illegitimate use of otherwise legitimate laws.
15. In Hong Kong, thousands of protesters are currently incarcerated by a colonial era law on public order, not by a Beijing-made law. Our police’s favourite weapon for bludgeoning free speech is a long dormant British law, the law on sedition. And last month, a man who took some photos on a hilltop with hand-held slogans was arrested for allegedly breaching regulations protecting the countryside. We also see money laundering laws cited as reason to refuse bank service to NGOs and dissidents, laws on foreign agents abused to strangle and slander rights organisations, and fire and building regulations weaponised to harass shops and groups with pro-democracy sympathy.
16. Laws on money laundering, public order and fire safety of course have their place in any legal system. Yet again, laws do not enforce themselves but are enforced – and observed – by men. In a society suffused with the lopsided power of the state, such imbalance inevitably corrupts the execution of laws. When state power goes unchecked, the legal system as a whole is degraded, which cannot be saved by blaming it ills on a few bad laws.
17. The opposite side of the same coin is the increasing impotence of so called “good” laws, chief among them being human rights laws. Yes, our constitution largely adopts the ICCPR, but that has not stopped the continuing crackdown on civil society. Officials unabashedly proclaim their respect for rights while trampling on them with impunity. Without people committed to – and with the power to – realizing them, human rights laws are but decorative frills on the statute book.
18. Dictators have little qualms in publicly “committing” to the loftiest principles since they are not bound by them. Instead of allowing such commitments to constrain their action, they use those words to constrain how reality can be perceived, such that their “righteousness” can never be shaken. Forced labour in Xinjiang does not exist. Allegation of torture is foreign propaganda. Nothing happened on Tiananmen Square on that fateful day 34 years ago. With the law on the side of the state, contradictory voices and facts are easily suppressed, discredited and eliminated from view. As shown by the fact that I must speak to you from prison, and the fact that most Chinese people would never know why Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi are imprisoned – or even heard of their names.
19. Impunity at home transposes to impunity abroad. In a world order built on the concept of sovereign states, a government’s global action is constrained only in so far as effective constraints exist domestically. Thus the Chinese government is not shy of acceding to, or themselves proposing, rules of international engagement that sounds fairly high-minded, because hardly anyone – least of all its own people – can hold it to account. It can propose the building of a “community with a shared future for mankind” while destroying every sense of community among its people producing a most atomised society. It can tout respect for diversity in a so-called Global Civilization Initiatives, while running a ruthless machinery of censorship and engaging in harsh repression against cultural and religious minorities. It can advocate sustainable development while hobbling all grassroots attempt to monitor environmental ills. It argues for the democratization of international institutions while assuming even more totalitarian control. It urges respect for a people’s choice of their own system of governance while never giving that choice to its people. Still we see more and more countries, from Chile to Nigeria, from Serbia to Indonesia, and even UN Secretary General Guterres expressing support for these “major global initiatives” proposed by Xi.”
20. When other countries sign onto these seemingly benign initiatives of China, they should be aware that they are not entering into genuine, mutual agreement of principles but a propaganda drive to reshape reality. The power of these initiatives has less in their content but more in their number of “adherents.” The more people echo these formulation, the more prestige to the proposer, the more credible is their version of reality. The form of these words become all important while the words themselves lose meaning. It is in fact, Havel’s story of the greengrocer repeated on a global scale.
21. If the problem is just about empty promises and misused provisions, then the rules-based order is perhaps still salvageable. All we need to do is to call out the rule-breakers, and when the opportunity comes, reactivate those neglected provisions. Or can we?
22. Not if the meaning of the rules has completely changed.
23. Again the experience of Hong Kong provides a cautionary tale. Much of the worst violations in human rights of the past few years were sanctioned by or enforced through the courts, but not because judges suddenly forget our human rights laws. Rather those laws are reinterpreted in a way that is compatible with gross human rights violation, through subtle shift in the meaning of words and concepts integral to that discourse.
24. For example, the concept of “national security” used to have a fairly definite ambit, and internationally recognised as a legitimate reason to restrict rights. However, since the advent of the National Security Law, the term has taken on an ever more expansive and partisan meaning, to the point that a common citizen speaking her mind can be considered a national security threat justifying indefinite pre-trial detention – if her views might contradict with that of the Party’s. The language of rights and balance is still there, but the substance has completely changed. And there is little pushback from the judiciary to such shift in meaning of “national security”; instead the Party’s narrative on the term is swallowed whole in the name of deference, and entrenched through successive case law.
25. Here we see how sensible legal principles developed in a democratic context, such as deference or emphasis on legislative intent, could lead to contradiction and injustice when transplanted to an undemocratic system. For the “legislative intent” behind laws such as the National Security Law is quite clear, and if an independent court, groomed in the common law tradition, sincerely sees its mission as the implementation of such intent, then even an “independent court” would in practice become the enforcer of the Party’s partisan will.
26. In a similar vein, the scope of what counts as peaceful protests has been steadily compressed by an ever looser interpretation of “violence,” which led to lengthy jail terms for thousands of protesters who have not themselves committed any act of violence, but were merely present at, or near to, scene where violence erupted. Thus we find even first aiders and mediators sentenced to years of imprisonment as “rioters,” all while the right to “peaceful” demonstration is expressly honoured. A similar trend is occurring in the realm of what counts as hate speech, where criticism, or even just sarcasm, are increasingly equated with the stroking of hatred. Indeed what you are listening to right now is likely to fall within that amorphous realm of “inciting hatred” by the standard of new Hong Kong, and thus, not entitled to free speech protection in our law.
27. Thus while on the surface we still speak the same language of rights as adopted from international instruments and precedents, in practice a huge gulf has emerged between our courts’ understanding of rights and international standards. Words and their meaning are ultimately, malleable, and judges are not miraculously insulated from how the wider society perceives words and constructs narratives. Indeed, quite the opposite: a healthy legal discourse cannot be had without the courts engaging in an open, continuous conversation with the society on importance principles such as justice and rights, through citizens and lawyers who brought and defend cases, construct arguments, highlight injustice, and criticize or celebrate key judgments. Where such conversation is largely free and democratic, we might manage to approach justice; but where such conversation is stunted or captured by partisan interests, or worst, by an overbearing state, legal discourse suffers.
28. I have already alluded to, but cannot fully explore in this short speech, the myriad ways the Party-state can influence judicial reasoning. Such shift in meaning and interpretation does not occur overnight, and thus is all the harder to detect and resist. Each step built on the last, with plausible sounding legal justification, until step by innocuous step we end up in a completely unrecognisable place, where prisoners of conscience populate our prisons. Protestations that our judiciary is still “independent” is really quite beside the point; the Party simply has little need of old style, explicit direction of individual cases when political control already permeated every pores of society. Such overt interference is rather, a last resort and a sign of failure. When the “independent” court is “voluntarily” jailing dissenters and destroying civil society, why interfere?
29. What happened in Hong Kong is not an anomaly but a warning. The Party’s power to redefine words and subvert their meaning does not stop at the Chinese border. And while during the Cold War, where one can identify and counter a distinct communist ideology and phraseology, today’s China is instead speaking the same liberal language of rights, democracy and peace. Crucial differences of course still exist, but are camouflaged under a raft of comforting phrases. For those of us who live under the Party’s rule, we know of course these familiar terms carry very different meanings in Party-speak. Rights are not about what individuals can assert against the state, but about empowering the state to safeguard the “rights” of the people. Democracy is not about citizens holding leaders accountable through free association, expression and election, but about leaders “graciously” listening to the voice of the people through controlled channels. And peace is about ensuring submission to the Party’s order through whatever means, not the rejection of war nor hatred.
30. With China’s growing stature, its way of using and interpreting words is inexorably seeping into international discourse. Sometimes it is pure power play, as when it strongarmed other nations into echoing its proposals and positions. At other times it is a matter of practicality; if one wish to communicate with China, its way of understanding key concepts in that dialogue cannot just be laughed away. Recently the media has reported on voices from the US calling on US and Chinese leaders to come to some agreement on how to define “national security” – a seemingly sensible suggestion to accommodate differences, but see what happened when the Party redefined “national security” in Hong Kong. And what is next? Should they go on to seek agreement on how to define human rights, or even democracy? Ceding to the state the authority to define words is a treacherous path, but when China is playing that game, others may be sorely tempted to follow.
31. There is still another way whereby party-speak slips in, that is through the logic of our own values. When the Chinese government proposes stuff like “peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom” as “common values of human kind,” it is at once saying something very different from the liberal understanding, yet with a vocabulary and logic we cannot reasonably reject. Surely we do not deny that things like democracy and justice are important, shared values, right? So what does it matter if we call them “universal values” or “common rules of human kind”? But of course it does matter; the concerted effort to replace “universal values” with “common values” is part of the same attempt to take away the power of articulating values from ordinary people, and putting it into the hands of the state. While there is no single authority on what is meant by “universal values,” the “common values of humankind” is the Party’s property, and thus, can be easily moulded to the Party’s liking, same with many seemingly benign formulation of the Party. When one adopts them out of courtesy or indifference, the Party gains another foothold in its war on meaning.
32. As party-speak gets increasingly mixed into international principles and rules, the danger is that the meaning of these principles would itself become distorted and confused, losing any conceptual coherence and hence, the ability to set standard, guide conduct or communicate values. Just see how the so-called “One China Principle,” which attains almost universal agreement, can in fact mean almost anything depending on the speaker. Instead of signalling consensus, the dominance of such a “norm” only prevents the clear articulation of genuine differences, which in turn compromise efforts to resolve them. Or see how the principle of “One Country, Two Systems,” the basis on which the U.K. agreed to hand over Hong Kong, is said to be more “accurately implemented” even as it is being violated. The greatest threat to the current rules-based order has not in the express renunciation of existing rules, but in their appropriation and subversion. The body of that rules-based order may live, but its soul could be lost.
33. In highlighting how a rules-based order can fail us, I am of course not advocating that we give up on having rules altogether. Far from it. But I do say that we should drop the pretense that law is independent of politics, or that a lawyer can do his job just as well by turning a blind eye to the power dynamic in a society. Rather, how parties, witnesses, jurors and judges interact are all affected by it. The letters of the law are but a skeleton; it is power that fills in the gap and animates them, not to mention, writing them down in the first place. The law constrains power to certain extent but never determines its action; on the other hand, neither can power take form and act on the world without the law. In that sense all effective order – as opposed to disorder – must be rules-based, except perhaps the smallest unit where the will of the powerful can directly mediate everything. The key questions are thus not whether an order is rules-based, but what kind of rules it is based on, and what kind of power animates it. Is the law a skeleton for a human being or a shark? Is the resulting order a healthy one in harmony with itself, or a Frankenstein with wing for an arm and an atrophied leg? But perhaps the Frankenstein is in fact a kind-hearted creature, while the physically healthy man is a ruthless murderer.
34. If what we are after is a just order, we must also work on building a just distribution of power instead of just worshipping rules. Only when power is genuinely shared could laws be the shared expression of a community instead of the will of a few. Only when values hold greater power than force, could laws function as a rational system of principles instead of a litany of brute commands. And only when laws faithfully express a community’s values could they deem the members’ respect and allegiance, instead of evoking only fear and resentment.
35. The questions of who, and what, has power in a society are in fact, intertwined. Values can have power only when power is fairly equally distributed among a people. For values are values only when backed by conscientious commitment, else they are just window dressing for ulterior interests. Just see how communism has all but lied in “Communist China” despite its prominence in official discourse. Since the voice of conscience can only come from within, and cannot be delegated nor centralized, conscience has power only when individuals have power. Thus, law as values is possible only when individuals have a share in state power, when each touched by the law can judge it and mould it in turn, in accordance with his own conscientious understanding of the law’s values.
36. Law-as-values is not about rigid principles set in stone, but is itself a living conversation conducted on an egalitarian basis. As such it must allow for uncertainty and contradiction, and does not guarantee success or lasting agreement. That order has nevertheless emerged out of such cacophony is the great miracle of the liberal experiment, and a testimony to the existence of universal values among humanity, which alone can anchor such a dynamic and pluralistic order.
37. In contrast, when individuals are disempowered, dominated by the outsized power of the state machinery or factional interests, laws inevitably degenerate into expression of force. For law-as-force does not require giving space to conscience or debates. Indeed, the grooming of obedient, unquestioning “soldiers” is often the quicker way to amassing overwhelming power, which ensures the stability of the resulting “rules- based order.”
38. With the rise of authoritarianism, what is at risk is not the existence of a rules-based order, but the authority of values in that order. A values-based order does not necessarily follow from a rules-based order, a distinction often overlooked by those who have always lived under a liberal order. Nor is the battle between law-as-values and law-as-force settled once and for all once important values are enshrined in foundational legal documents. Rather, laws as genuine statements of values are a rare and fragile achievement made possible only through hard-won democratization of power and sustained through the constant effort and vigilance of people committed to those values. Or in other words, it depends on whether we can keep the conversation on values alive and inclusive – which is where Hong Kong has failed. What has disappeared there is not a rules-based order, nor an ostensibly liberal constitution, but the guiding power of liberal values in the day-to-day working of that order. It is a fate that may befall more shall we fail to defend our values, head-on. We must put values back at the centre of our laws and our politics instead of dismissing them as the quaint preoccupation of the idealists. Difficult and no doubt, contentious debates on the content and implication of universal values cannot be sidestepped in order to placate dictators, appease demagogues, or secure material gains. This way lies the confirmation of the power of force over values, and paves the path to their further erosion. In that sense defending the rights of people everywhere is far more than just about helping others, but is at the heart of the battle to define ourselves and the order we have built. Are we truly a community of principles, or are we just as cynical as the dictator next door? Are we sincere about building a world order based on values, or are we happy with whatever kind of order so long as we are on the winning side?
39. As far as inclusiveness is concerned, it is indisputable that the current international order is heavily dominated by the West, and thus still quite far from the ideal of law-as-values. But the way to improve it is not by giving more voice to the non-western dictators, which could only deepen the silence of the hitherto voiceless. Rather ordinary people must be empowered to join in the conversation on values through the building of democracy everywhere. Again, a difficult and not uncontroversial task, often decried as “interference” when such efforts and solidarity are extended across border. Yet if we are to abandon the quest for democracy, we shall have no hope of ever building a just international order based on values.
40. As lawyers, our trade is needed in any kind of rules-based order, good or bad, just or unjust. Yet the dignity of our profession cannot survive in just any kind of order. Instead, it is bounded up with the dignity of the law, with whether the law reflects our autonomy or denies it. In that sense the building of democratic institutions that alone can safeguard the law’s dignity is also a lawyer’s duty, which is why all three of us receiving this prize today are jailed for working for democracy in China, a fight that may seem unrelated to our profession but is in fact, central to it. It is a fight we cannot waver from, even when knowing that the laws we served would likely condemn us. For sometimes confronting the law-as-it-is is the only way to respect the law-as-it-should-be – and the highest service a lawyer can offer her fellow men.
____________________________________
#鄒幸彤 #許志永 #丁家喜 獲取 2023CCBE人權奬
#ChowHangTung, #XuZhiyong and #DingJiaxi receive the CCBE Human Rights Award 2023
CCBE - Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe 第2023屆的CCBE人權獎得主是「鄒幸彤、許志永、丁家喜」。此奬項是向三位律師長期以來致力於捍衛人權和法治的勇氣、決心、承諾及出色表現和犧牲，致上敬意。
#CCBE 主席 #PanagiotisPerakis 將在 2023 年 11 月 24 日(星期五)雅典的CCBE全體會議上頒發這個人權獎項。鄒幸彤、許志永、丁家喜在遭受司法騷擾的情況下，仍以非凡的勇氣和奉獻精神支持人權，是值得整個法律界的尊重和認可。
CCBE關注到，在中國倡議人權和法治的律師處境並沒有改善，甚至惡化；這個情況出現在全球其中一個最大的權力和經濟體，令人憂慮。#歐洲律師 將透過CCBE繼續密切關注事態發展，並為需要幫助的中國同事提供支援。 我們永遠不會接受律師因為其作為律師的合法活動而成為攻擊目標。
The CCBE decided to grant the CCBE Human Rights Award 2023 to Chinese Lawyers #HangTungChow, #XuZhiyong and #DingJiaxi for their courage, determination and commitment to defending human rights and the rule of law in China.
The CCBE President, Panagiotis Perakis, will present their awards during the CCBE Plenary Session on Friday 24 November 2023 in Athens. With this Award, the CCBE wishes to highlight the long-standing and outstanding commitment and sacrifice those three lawyers have demonstrated in upholding the fundamental values of the legal profession and in defending and advocating for human rights and the respect for the rule of law.
The CCBE is concerned that the situation of lawyers in China who advocate for human rights and the rule of law has still not improved, and has even worsened in some cases, which is even more worrying in a country considered to be one of the world’s largest power and economy. Through the CCBE, European lawyers will continue to closely monitor the situation and support their Chinese colleagues who need help. We will never accept that lawyers are targeted because of their legitimate activities as lawyers.
___________________
#CCBE人權奬 目的：突顯一位或多位在維護基本價值觀方面表現出傑出承諾和犧牲的律師或律師組織的工作。 該獎項授予透過維護人權領域專業和個人行為的最高價值觀為法律職業帶來榮譽的一名或多名律師或律師組織。
The purpose of the #CCBEHumanRightsAward: Highlighting the work of one or more lawyers or lawyers’ organisations which have demonstrated outstanding commitment and sacrifice in upholding fundamental values. The award is granted to one or more lawyers or to a lawyers’ organisation which have brought honour to the legal profession by upholding the highest values of professional and personal conduct in the field of human rights.
#FreeHangTung #FreeZhiyong #FreeJiaxi
消息來源：
#小彤群抽會
https://www.facebook.com/ChowHangTungClub
#CCBE -Council of bars and Law Societies of Europe
https://www.ccbe.eu
___________________
*This paper was originally written in English. English version shall prevail in case of discrepancy. 文章以英文版本為準。
**Please scroll for English version 英文致謝辭在後
關於「基於規則的秩序」
On Rules-based Order
1. 一名囚犯獲得由其他律師授予的獎項，這實在有些諷刺。當一個誓言要為法律服務的人被指控違反法律卻因而受到表彰時，這其中必然有某種嚴重的問題。也許這是一個好機會，藉此反思律師與法律的關係，或者更概括地說，反思基於規則的秩序──無論是國家還是國際秩序。
2. 身為法律專業人士，我們接受的訓練是關於法律應該如何存在的──作為正義與自由的公正守護者，扎根於真理與平等，透過民主精神得以實行。基於對法律的這種理想化概念，我們建立理論和實踐，包括專業規則、標準和原則，藉以理解法律，與之互動。然而，這猶如在神話上建構我們的實踐。
3. 現實世界遠非令人愉快的地方，大多數人並不活在正義或接近正義的情況下。他們必須忍受壓迫而非保護他們的法律。他們被那些他們無法參與制定或塑造的法律所剝削。那些使他們窒息的法律從來不會觸碰到精英階層。人們對法律的體驗是它真實的面貌，而非它應該是的樣子──正如那些高尚的原則往往是金玉其外，敗絮其中。
4. 對於那些不滿足活於神話中的律師來說，我們應該如何對待現實中的法律？如果憲法賦予某個政黨絕對的領導地位，效忠法律是否代表我們要接受一黨專政？當一條法律經由黑箱作業，突然對群眾實施，你是接受抑或拒絕？當你清楚知道一些毫無意義且繁瑣的法規只是選擇性地強加於不受歡迎者時，你會接受漠視法律還是堅持平等執法？當法律明文規定的權利在現實中被踐踏，而放棄這些權利會更加安全時，你會建議委託人服膺於現實的法律還是應有的法律？這便是我和我的同行每天都在面對的現實。
5. 將法律偶像化的，當然不只是律師。
6. 當今世界各地的政治人物普遍反覆強調一個觀點：需要維護一個「基於規則的國際秩序」。不是基於權利，不是基於價值觀，而是基於規則。也許「規則」的概念看起來較少政治色彩、更中立、較少引起分歧，民主派和獨裁者都可以接受。但這正正是問題所在——獨裁者也喜歡這種說法，因為基於規則的秩序同樣能夠為他們所用。
7. 規則或法律並非自主運行，而是依賴於制定、解釋和執行它們的人。它們並非神聖、絕對的真理，而是習慣和偶然、設計和監督、抱負和卑劣的產物。最終，法律是權力的表述。由不公正權力支撐的法律可能帶來最恐怖的噩夢，更別說要治癒這個充滿苦難的世界。
8. 歷史上充滿了法律罪行的例子。最多壓迫的國家往往不是失敗到要放棄法律和秩序的，反而是善於利用法律將社會推至不堪境況的國家。
9. 大屠殺的發生並非因為缺乏規則，而是因為那些規則是由納粹制定的。種族隔離制度並非自然秩序，而是由少數白人強行實施規則的結果。數百萬維吾爾人被拘禁並非因為隨機的報復，而是透過大量的規則和法規執行的系統性政策。在我的家鄉城市，北京政權單方面實施的國家安全法使我的許多朋友──學者、立法者、律師、記者、工會組織者和社會運動人士──成為「罪犯」；他們一直奉公守法，只是在繼續做他們視為自己責任的事。
10. 正如一個公正的體制一樣，不公正的體制同樣需要規則來運作和延續。事實上，規則往往可以為不公義提供制度合法性，透過官僚效率和冷漠使惡行得以大規模實施。
11. 當中國的防火長城變成有法律依據的生活日常，很少人會繼續認為它是一種嚴重侵犯人權的行為。然而，這座用於封鎖自由信息的龐大基礎設施，每天都在侵犯數十億人接收資訊、表達和溝通的權利。在產出了一個佔世界人口六分之一的被控對象以後，它為虛假信息與偏見的扎根和傳播提供了堅實的基礎，這反過來又在中國境外帶來審查資訊的壓力，並侵害各種辯論。然而，科技公司——當地和外國的公司都是一樣——毫不猶豫地參與這個全球最大的思想控制行動，因為他們總是可以說他們只是「遵從法律要求」。由此，法律成為安撫我們的良心 、麻痺我們惡行的藉口。
12. 「規則就是規則」，官員如是說，法官如是說，監獄長如是說。房間裡的大象在冷笑。究竟是誰制定了這些規則呢？
13. 問題不僅只是制定惡法的惡人。問題是，法律要如何應用於現實世界？
14. 當某條法律明顯有令人厭惡的目的時，我們可以輕易指出問題，並提出要廢除甚至違抗這條法律。但是，這種道德明晰的情況相對少見。更常見的情況是對合法法律的不當濫用。
15. 在香港，成千上萬的抗議者目前因為殖民時代的公共秩序法律－不是北京制定的法律－被拘禁。警方最喜歡用來打擊言論自由的武器，是一條早已廢棄的英國法律，即煽動法。上個月，一名手持標語的男子在山上拍照，後來因涉嫌違反保護郊野的規定而被捕。我們還看到反洗錢法被引用為拒絕向非政府組織和異議份子提供銀行服務的理由，有關外國代理人的法律被濫用以扼殺和詆毁維權組織，防火和建築安全法規成為騷擾支持民主的商店和團體的武器。
16. 反洗錢、公共秩序和防火安全等法律在任何法律體系中都有其位置。但是，法律並不是自主，而是由人執行並且遵守的。在一個權力向政權傾斜的社會中，權力不平衡必然會腐蝕法律的執行。當國家權力無法被制約時，整個法律體系就會受損，將問題歸咎於一些不好的法律只會無補於事。
17. 同一枚硬幣的另一面，是所謂「好」法律的無力感不斷增加，其中最重要的是人權法。是的，我們的憲法在很大程度上採用了《國際公民權利和政治權利公約》，但這並未能使公民社會免受持續打壓。官員一邊宣稱尊重權利，另一邊卻肆無忌憚地踐踏權利而沒有受到懲罰。如果沒有人致力並且擁有權力去實現這些權利，人權法只不過是法典上的裝飾。
18. 獨裁者對於公開「承諾」崇高原則並不感到太過顧慮，因為他們並不受這些原則的約束。他們不會讓承諾限制行動，而是利用言辭來限制現實如何被感知，使得他們的「正義」永遠不會被動搖。在新疆並不存在強迫勞動；酷刑的指控是外國的宣傳；34年前那個命運多舛的日子在天安門廣場上什麼都沒發生。當法律站在國家這一邊，異議的聲音和事實很容易被鎮壓、詆毀並從視野中消除。正如我要從監獄中說這番話，以及大多數中國人永遠不會知道為什麼許志永和丁家喜被監禁，甚至沒有聽說過他們的名字。
19. 在國內的免責權力會轉化為國際上的免責。在一個建立於主權國家概念的世界秩序中，某國政府的全球行動只有在國內存在有效的約束力時，才會受到限制。因此，中國政府並不羞於加入，甚或自己提出聽起來頗具崇高理念的國際關係規則，因為幾乎沒有人——尤其是其自身人民——能夠追究其責任。它可以提議建設「人類命運共同體」，同時摧毀其人民的每一種共同體意識，制造最孤立的社會。它可以吹噓要在所謂的全球文明倡議中尊重多樣性，同時運行一個粗暴的審查機制，對文化和宗教少數群體進行嚴厲打壓。它可以提倡可持續發展，同時阻礙所有基層群眾監測環境問題的努力。它主張國際機構的民主化，但同時實施更加極權主義的控制。它敦促尊重人民對自己國家治理體系的選擇，卻從未給予其人民這個選擇權。儘管如此，我們看到越來越多的國家，從智利到尼日利亞，從塞爾維亞到印度尼西亞（印尼），甚至聯合國秘書長古特雷斯表示支持習近平提出的這些「重大全球倡議」。
20. 當其他國家簽署中國這些看似善意的倡議時，他們應該意識到自己並不是參與真誠的、相互諒解的原則，而是參與一場重新塑造現實的宣傳活動。這些倡議的力量不在於它們的內容，而在於它們的「追隨者」數量。越多人附和這些陳述，提出者的聲望就越高，他們對現實的解讀就越可信。言辭的形式變得至關重要，而言辭本身卻失去了意義。實際上，這就是全球規模的哈維爾（Havel）的小販故事。
21. 如果問題僅僅是關於空洞的承諾和濫用的條文，我們也許可以挽救基於規則的秩序。我們只要指責那些違規者，等待機會重新啟動那些被忽視的條文。對嗎？
22. 如果規則的含義完全改變了，那就不可能了。
23. 香港的經驗再次是一個警示。過去幾年來，許多最嚴重的侵犯人權行為都經法院批准或執行，這並不是因為法官突然忘記了我們的人權法。其實是，這些法律以嚴重侵犯人權的方式重新詮釋，並依照新的論述隱晦地調整詞語和概念的含義。
24. 例如，「國家安全」這個概念過去有一個頗為明確的範疇，被國際公認為限制權利的正當理由。然而，自從國家安全法推出以來，這個詞語的涵義變得越來越寛廣和偏頗。一位普通市民發表的意見如果與黨的觀點有矛盾，她／他也可能被視為威脅國家安全，在沒有審訊的情況下被無限期羈押。權利和制衡的語言仍然存在，但實質上已經完全改變。對於「國家安全」這個詞語意義的轉變，司法體系很少有反彈；相反，司法體系以尊重為名，將黨對這個詞語的敘述照單全收，並以一連串案例使之更穩固。
25. 由此，我們看到在民主體系下制定的合理法律原則——比如尊重或者強調立法意圖——被移植到非民主體系時，可能會產生的矛盾和不公。國家安全法等法律背後的「立法意圖」是相當清楚的，如果一個源於普通法傳統的獨立法院真心地認為其使命便是實現這種意圖，那麼即使是一個「獨立法院」也會淪為黨的意旨的執行者。
26. 在類似的脈絡下，經由對「暴力」一詞更加寬鬆的解釋，和平抗議的範圍不斷被壓縮，導致數以千計示威者即使本身沒有任何暴力行為，僅因出現在或靠近暴力現場便被判處長期監禁。雖說「和平」示威的權利仍然受到尊重，但另一方面急救人員和調解人員也被視為「暴徒」，判處監禁多年。在界定仇恨言論範疇的問題上，也有類似的趨勢，批評甚至是諷刺也往往被視為等同於煽動仇恨。實際上，根據新香港的標準，你現在聽到的內容便很可能被歸類為那個模糊的「煽動仇恨」範疇，因此並不享有言論自由的保護。
27. 因此，雖然表面上我們仍然使用源於國際條約和先例有關權利的語言，實際上法院對權利的理解和國際標準之間出現了巨大的鴻溝。詞彙及其意義最終都是可塑的，而法官如何理解詞彙和構建論述也不可能奇蹟般地隔絕於廣大社會。事實上，恰恰相反：如果法院不在公開持續的對話中與社會進行關於正義和權利等重要原則的討論——透過由市民和律師提出和辯護案件、構建論點、指出不公、批評或讚揚重要判決，健康的法律論述便無法實現。如果這樣的對話基本上是自由和民主的，我們便也許能夠接近正義；但如果這樣的對話受到妨阻，或者被黨派利益所困，甚至專橫的國家所控制，法律論述就會受損。
28. 我已經提及，但在這篇簡短的演講中無法充分探討黨國影響司法推論的種種方式。意義和詮釋的轉變不是一夜之間發生的，因此更難以察覺和抵制。每一步都建立在上一步之基礎上，我們沿著看似合理的法律依據，踏著以為無害的腳步，一步步走到一個完全無法辨認的地方——在那裡監獄滿是良心犯。強調我們司法仍然「獨立」實際上無關痛癢；黨國根本不需要對個別案件進行舊式的、明確的指示，因為政治控制已經滲透到社會的每個角落。公開的干預實際上是最後的手段，也是失敗的象徵。當「獨立」的法院「自願」監禁異見人士並摧毀公民社會時，還有什麼需要干預的呢？
29. 香港所發生的事情並非偶然事件，而是一個警示。黨重新定義詞語並扭曲其意義的權力並非只限於中國。在冷戰時期，人們可以識別和對抗明確的共產主義的意識形態和措辭。然而，今天的中國卻在使用相同的自由主義語言，談論權利、民主與和平。當然，關鍵的差異仍然存在，但被一系列令人心安的詞語所掩蓋。對於我們這些生活在黨的統治之下的人來說，我們當然知道這些熟悉的詞語在黨的用語中有著截然不同的含義。權利不是關於個人可以要求國家做甚麼，而是賦予國家權力保障人民「權利」。民主不是關於公民通過自由結社、表達和選舉來向領導人問責，而是領導人通過受控的渠道「禮貌地」聽人民的聲音。和平是以各種方式順從黨的秩序，而不是拒絕戰爭或仇恨。
30. 隨著中國地位不斷提升，其使用和解釋詞語的方式無可避免地滲透到國際話語中。有時這是純粹的權力遊戲，例如迫使其他國家附和其提案和立場。在其他時候，這是一個實際的問題。如果希望與中國進行交流，就不能對其在對話中理解關鍵概念的方式輕忽對待。最近有媒體報導，美國有聲音呼籲美中領導人就如何定義「國家安全」達成協議——這看似是一個容包容分歧的明智建議，但看看黨在香港重新定義「國家安全」之後發生了什麼事？接著下來呢？他們是否應該繼續就如何定義人權甚至民主尋求一致的協議？將定義權力交給國家是一條危險的路，但當中國在玩這場遊戲時，其他國家也極受誘惑去跟隨。
31. 還有另一種黨語滲透方式，那就是通過我們自己的價值觀的邏輯。當中國政府提出像「和平、發展、公平、正義、民主和自由」這些「人類共同價值」時，它同時表達了與自由主義截然不同的觀點，只是使用了一種我們不能合理地拒絕的詞彙和邏輯。當然，我們不會否認民主和正義這些事物是重要、普及的價值觀，對吧？那麼，稱它們為「普世價值」或「人類的共同規則」，又有什麼問題呢？這當然是有問題的：以「共同價值」替換「普世價值」的協同努力，是試圖剝奪普通民眾表達價值觀的權力，並將其置於國家手中。雖然定義「普世價值」並沒有單一權威，但「人類的共同價值」是黨的資產，因此可以輕易地被塑造成黨所喜好的樣子，這與黨的許多看似善意的表述相同。當人們出於禮貌或冷漠而採用它們時，黨就在對意義的戰爭中贏得了另一個據點。
32. 隨著黨語越來越混入國際原則和規則中，危險的是這些原則的含義本身可能變得扭曲和混亂，失去概念上的連貫性，從而失去了設定標準、引導行為或傳達價值觀的能力。例如，所謂的「一個中國原則」幾乎成了一致的協議，實際上卻可以根據發言者而有各種意思。這種「規範」的主導地位既不能傳達共識，反而阻礙了真正分歧的清晰表達，進而危及解決分歧的努力。或者看看「一國兩制」原則——英國同意交還香港的基礎，即使實際上它正被違反，卻被說成正在被「更準確地實施」。當前對基於規則的秩序的最大威脅並不在於放棄現有規則的明確，而是對它的挪用和顛覆。基於規則的秩序的軀體可能會存在，但其靈魂可能已經消亡。
33. 談到基於規則的秩序如何讓我們失望，我當然不是主張我們完全放棄規則。相反，我認為我們應該停止假裝法律是獨立於政治之外的，或者認為一個律師的工作可以對社會上的權力關係視而不見。事實上，委託人、證人、陪審員和法官之間的互動都受到權力的影響。法律的文字只是一個骨架，是權力填補了空白並使其活起來，更不用說從一開始寫下法律的便是權力。法律在某程度上約束權力，但從來不能決定其行動。另一方面，權力也不能在沒有法律的情況下形成並對世界產生作用。從這個意義上說，所有有效的秩序——而不是無序——都必須以規則為基礎，除了權力意志可以直接調停一切的最小單位之外。因此，關鍵問題不是秩序是否基於規則，而是它基於什麼樣的規則，以及是什麼樣的權力驅動它。法律是人的骨架還是鯊魚的骨架？由此而來的秩序是一個與自身和諧共處的健康秩序，還是一個有翅膀一樣的手臂和一條萎縮的腿的科學怪人？但也許科學怪人其實是個善良的生物，而身體健康的人卻是個殘忍的殺人犯。
34. 如果我們追求的是一個公義的秩序，那麼我們必須致力於建立公義的權力分配，而不僅僅是崇拜規則。只有當權力真正共享時，法律才能成為社群的共同表達，而不僅僅是少數人的意志。只有當價值觀比武力更有力時，法律才能發揮作為一個理性的原則體系的功能，而不僅僅是一連串的粗暴命令。只有當法律忠實地表達了社群的價值觀，它才能得到成員的尊重和忠誠，而不僅僅引起恐懼和憤恨。
35. 社會中，誰和甚麼擁有權力實際上是緊緊相扣的。價值觀只有在權力相對公平地分配時才有力量。因為價值觀只有得到真心的承諾才有價值，否則它們只是為了別有用心的利益而裝飾門面。例如，儘管官方話語堂而皇之，「共產中國」的共產主義卻只是謊話連篇。良心的聲音只能來自內心，不能被下放或集中，所以只有當個體擁有權力時，良心才有力量。因此，只有在個體能夠分享國家權力，每個受法律影響的人都能根據自己的良心對法律認真的理解來判斷和塑造法律時，法律才能成為價值觀。
36. 法律作為價值觀並不是指一成不變的僵化原則，而是一場在平等基礎上進行的持續對話。因此，它必須容許不確定性和矛盾，並且不能保證成功或持久的協議。然而，從這樣的躁音生出秩序是自由主義實驗的偉大奇蹟，也是人類中存在普世價值的證明，是動態和多元秩序的根基。
37. 相反，當個體被奪去權力，且被龐大的國家機器或派系利益所支配時，法律不可避免地淪為權勢的展現。法律為權勢所用是需要良心或辯論的。事實上，培養服從、不問根由的「士兵」通常是積累壓倒性權力的快捷方式，並確保由此產生的「基於規則的秩序」的穩定性。
38. 隨著威權主義的崛起，面對風險的不是基於規則的秩序，而是在該秩序中價值觀的權威。基於價值觀的秩序不一定源自基於規則的秩序，這是那些一直生活在自由秩序下的人經常忽視的區別。重要的價值觀被鑄入基本法律文件後，法律作為價值觀和法律作為力量之間的鬥爭也並非一勞永逸就能解決的。相反，作為真正陳述價值觀的法律是一個罕見而脆弱的成就，只有透過來之不易的權力民主化才能實現，並透過致力於這些價值觀的人們的不斷努力和警惕來維持。換句話說，這取決於我們能否保持對價值觀對話的活力和包容——在這方面香港是失敗的。在那裡消失的不是基於規則的秩序，也不是表面上的自由主義憲法，而是自由價值觀在秩序的日常運作中的指導力量。如果我們不堅決捍衛我們的價值觀，這命運很可能降臨到更多人身上。我們必須將價值觀重新置於法律和政治的中心，而不是將它們視為理想主義者的古怪念頭而置之不理。毫無疑問而艱難的是，我們不能為了安撫獨裁者、取悅挑撥者、或者獲得物質利益而迴避在普世價值觀的內容和含義上進行具爭議性的辯論。那樣做只會使權勢勝過價值觀，且使價值進一步被侵蝕。從這個意義上來說，捍衛世界各地人民的權利不僅僅是幫助他人，而是一場定義我們自身和我們建立的秩序的戰鬥的核心。我們是真正的原則共同體，還是和隔壁的獨裁者一樣犬儒？我們是否真誠地致力於建立基於價值觀的世界秩序，還是只要我們站在贏的一方就心滿意足？
39. 就包容性而言，無可否認當前的國際秩序在很大程度上受到西方主導，因此距離法律作為價值觀的理想仍然相去甚遠。但改進的方法不是給予非西方的獨裁者更多發言權，這只會加深迄今仍是無聲者的沉默。相反，必須透過在各地建立民主來賦予一般民眾有權參與有關價值觀的對話。這又是一項困難且不無爭議的任務，當這樣的努力和團結跨越國界時，通常被譴責為「干涉內政」。然而，如果我們放棄對民主的追求，我們將永遠無望建立基於價值觀的公正國際秩序。
40. 作為律師，我們的專業在任何基於規則的秩序中都是必需的，無論好壞，公正或不公正。然而，法律專業的尊嚴並非在任何一種秩序中都能得以保持。相反，它與法律的尊嚴，與法律是否能反映我們的自主權是緊密相連的。從這個意義上說，建立能夠保衛法律尊嚴的民主制度也是律師的職責，這也是為什麼今天獲得這個獎項的三位，此時都因為在中國為民主奮鬥而被監禁。這場戰鬥可能看起來與我們的專業無關，但實際上是至關重要的。這是一場我們不能動搖的戰鬥，即使知道我們所服務的法律可能會懲罰我們。因為有時候去對抗現實的法律，是尊重應當存在的法律之唯一方式，也是一位律師能為同袍們獻上的最高敬禮。
#自由幸彤 #自由志永 #自由家喜
___________________________
** This paper was originally written in English. English version shall prevail in case of discrepancy. 文章以英文版本為準**
【 Acceptance speech of CHOW Hang-tung of CCBE Human Rights Award 】
關於「#基於規則的秩序」
On Rules-based Order
1. There is a certain irony in a prisoner of law receiving a prize given by lawyers. Something must have gone very wrong when one who pledged to serve the law receives recognition instead for allegedly breaking the law. So perhaps this is a good opportunity to reflect on the lawyer’s relationship with the law, or more broadly, the rules-based order – whether national or international ones.
2. As lawyers, we were trained on law as it should be – as impartial guardian of justice and freedom, grounded in truth and equality, enacted in a democratic spirit. We build our theories and practices, including professional rules, norms, and principles on how to understand and interact with the law, based on such an idealized conception of what law is. But this is akin to building our practice on a myth.
3. For the real world is a much less happy place; most of humanity do not live under conditions of justice or anywhere near it. They must live with law that oppress, not protect. They are exploited by laws that they have no say in making or shaping. Laws that suffocate them never touch the elites. The people out there experience the law as it is, not as how it should be – as high principles that sound good but taste bad.
4. For lawyers who are not content to live in a myth, how should we conduct ourselves with regard to the real laws? When the constitution mandates a Party’s absolute leadership, does allegiance to the law requires honouring one-party rule? When a law is secretly made and suddenly sprung on the populace, do you accept or reject its authority? When you know full well that senseless and burdensome rules are only selectively imposed on the disfavoured, do you console disregard of the law or insist on equal enforcement? When rights written into laws are in practice honoured in the breach, and when renouncing those rights is the surer path to safety, do you advise your clients on the law-as-it-is or the law-as-it-should-be? For this is the reality myself and my colleagues are living with, day in day out.
5. The idolization of law is of course, not limited to lawyers.
6. A common refrain by politicians across the world these days is the need to uphold a “rules-based international order.” Not rights-based, not values-based, but rules-based. Perhaps the concept of “rules” is seen to be less political, more neutral, less divisive. Agreeable to both democrats and autocrats alike. But herein lies the catch – autocrats like this formulation too precisely because a rules-based order can serve them just as well.
7. Rules, or laws, do not run themselves, but are dependent on people who make them, interpret them and enforce them. They are not divine, absolute truth, but rather creatures of habits and accidents, design and oversight, aspirations and baseness. Ultimately, laws are statements of power. Far from being a panacea for a troubled world, laws propped up by unjust power could bring about the greatest nightmare.
8. History is strewn with examples of the law’s crimes. The most oppressive state is seldom the failed state that abjures law and order, but a pervasive state that excels at using law to order society to unsavoury ends.
9. The Holocaust did not happen because of a lack of rules, but because of rules made by the Nazi. Apartheid was not a natural order, but the result of rules imposed by a white minority. Millions of Uighurs were not interned because of arbitrary reprisal, but because of a systematic policy implemented through a plethora of rules and regulations. And in the city I call home, a national security law unilaterally imposed by Beijing made “criminals” out of many friends of mine, who are scholars, legislators, lawyers, journalists, unionists and activists – namely, law-abiding citizens doing what they have always done, what they consider their duty.
10. An unjust system also needs rules to function and to perpetuate, just as much as a just system needs them. Indeed rules can often cloak injustice with a veil of institutional legitimacy, facilitating the implementation of evil at scale through bureaucratic efficiency and indifference.
11. When the Great Firewall of China becomes a routine fact of life backed up by the authority of laws, few continues to acknowledge it as the gross human rights violation that it is anymore. But surely this massive infrastructure to wall off free information is a daily violation of the rights to information, expression and communication of billions. Further, in producing a trapped audience that amounts to one-sixth of the world’s population, it provides a solid base for disinformation and prejudice to take root and spread, which in turn exports pressure to censor and poisons debates well beyond the Chinese border. Yet tech companies – local and foreign alike – are untroubled by their participation in the world’s largest attempt at thought control, since they can always say that they are merely “complying with legal requirements.” Law thus becomes an excuse to calm our conscience, numbing us to the part we play in evil.
12. “Rules are rules,” say the officials, say the judges, say the prison warden. And the elephant in the room snorts. Who made the rules, anyway?
13. The problem goes beyond bad actors intentionally making bad laws. It is also about how laws are applied to the real world.
14. Where a law is explicitly made for an objectionable purpose, we can easily point that out and say, let’s repeal this, or even, let’s disobey this. But situation of such moral clarity is relatively rare. More often, what we face is the illegitimate use of otherwise legitimate laws.
15. In Hong Kong, thousands of protesters are currently incarcerated by a colonial era law on public order, not by a Beijing-made law. Our police’s favourite weapon for bludgeoning free speech is a long dormant British law, the law on sedition. And last month, a man who took some photos on a hilltop with hand-held slogans was arrested for allegedly breaching regulations protecting the countryside. We also see money laundering laws cited as reason to refuse bank service to NGOs and dissidents, laws on foreign agents abused to strangle and slander rights organisations, and fire and building regulations weaponised to harass shops and groups with pro-democracy sympathy.
16. Laws on money laundering, public order and fire safety of course have their place in any legal system. Yet again, laws do not enforce themselves but are enforced – and observed – by men. In a society suffused with the lopsided power of the state, such imbalance inevitably corrupts the execution of laws. When state power goes unchecked, the legal system as a whole is degraded, which cannot be saved by blaming it ills on a few bad laws.
17. The opposite side of the same coin is the increasing impotence of so called “good” laws, chief among them being human rights laws. Yes, our constitution largely adopts the ICCPR, but that has not stopped the continuing crackdown on civil society. Officials unabashedly proclaim their respect for rights while trampling on them with impunity. Without people committed to – and with the power to – realizing them, human rights laws are but decorative frills on the statute book.
18. Dictators have little qualms in publicly “committing” to the loftiest principles since they are not bound by them. Instead of allowing such commitments to constrain their action, they use those words to constrain how reality can be perceived, such that their “righteousness” can never be shaken. Forced labour in Xinjiang does not exist. Allegation of torture is foreign propaganda. Nothing happened on Tiananmen Square on that fateful day 34 years ago. With the law on the side of the state, contradictory voices and facts are easily suppressed, discredited and eliminated from view. As shown by the fact that I must speak to you from prison, and the fact that most Chinese people would never know why Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi are imprisoned – or even heard of their names.
19. Impunity at home transposes to impunity abroad. In a world order built on the concept of sovereign states, a government’s global action is constrained only in so far as effective constraints exist domestically. Thus the Chinese government is not shy of acceding to, or themselves proposing, rules of international engagement that sounds fairly high-minded, because hardly anyone – least of all its own people – can hold it to account. It can propose the building of a “community with a shared future for mankind” while destroying every sense of community among its people producing a most atomised society. It can tout respect for diversity in a so-called Global Civilization Initiatives, while running a ruthless machinery of censorship and engaging in harsh repression against cultural and religious minorities. It can advocate sustainable development while hobbling all grassroots attempt to monitor environmental ills. It argues for the democratization of international institutions while assuming even more totalitarian control. It urges respect for a people’s choice of their own system of governance while never giving that choice to its people. Still we see more and more countries, from Chile to Nigeria, from Serbia to Indonesia, and even UN Secretary General Guterres expressing support for these “major global initiatives” proposed by Xi.”
20. When other countries sign onto these seemingly benign initiatives of China, they should be aware that they are not entering into genuine, mutual agreement of principles but a propaganda drive to reshape reality. The power of these initiatives has less in their content but more in their number of “adherents.” The more people echo these formulation, the more prestige to the proposer, the more credible is their version of reality. The form of these words become all important while the words themselves lose meaning. It is in fact, Havel’s story of the greengrocer repeated on a global scale.
21. If the problem is just about empty promises and misused provisions, then the rules-based order is perhaps still salvageable. All we need to do is to call out the rule-breakers, and when the opportunity comes, reactivate those neglected provisions. Or can we?
22. Not if the meaning of the rules has completely changed.
23. Again the experience of Hong Kong provides a cautionary tale. Much of the worst violations in human rights of the past few years were sanctioned by or enforced through the courts, but not because judges suddenly forget our human rights laws. Rather those laws are reinterpreted in a way that is compatible with gross human rights violation, through subtle shift in the meaning of words and concepts integral to that discourse.
24. For example, the concept of “national security” used to have a fairly definite ambit, and internationally recognised as a legitimate reason to restrict rights. However, since the advent of the National Security Law, the term has taken on an ever more expansive and partisan meaning, to the point that a common citizen speaking her mind can be considered a national security threat justifying indefinite pre-trial detention – if her views might contradict with that of the Party’s. The language of rights and balance is still there, but the substance has completely changed. And there is little pushback from the judiciary to such shift in meaning of “national security”; instead the Party’s narrative on the term is swallowed whole in the name of deference, and entrenched through successive case law.
25. Here we see how sensible legal principles developed in a democratic context, such as deference or emphasis on legislative intent, could lead to contradiction and injustice when transplanted to an undemocratic system. For the “legislative intent” behind laws such as the National Security Law is quite clear, and if an independent court, groomed in the common law tradition, sincerely sees its mission as the implementation of such intent, then even an “independent court” would in practice become the enforcer of the Party’s partisan will.
26. In a similar vein, the scope of what counts as peaceful protests has been steadily compressed by an ever looser interpretation of “violence,” which led to lengthy jail terms for thousands of protesters who have not themselves committed any act of violence, but were merely present at, or near to, scene where violence erupted. Thus we find even first aiders and mediators sentenced to years of imprisonment as “rioters,” all while the right to “peaceful” demonstration is expressly honoured. A similar trend is occurring in the realm of what counts as hate speech, where criticism, or even just sarcasm, are increasingly equated with the stroking of hatred. Indeed what you are listening to right now is likely to fall within that amorphous realm of “inciting hatred” by the standard of new Hong Kong, and thus, not entitled to free speech protection in our law.
27. Thus while on the surface we still speak the same language of rights as adopted from international instruments and precedents, in practice a huge gulf has emerged between our courts’ understanding of rights and international standards. Words and their meaning are ultimately, malleable, and judges are not miraculously insulated from how the wider society perceives words and constructs narratives. Indeed, quite the opposite: a healthy legal discourse cannot be had without the courts engaging in an open, continuous conversation with the society on importance principles such as justice and rights, through citizens and lawyers who brought and defend cases, construct arguments, highlight injustice, and criticize or celebrate key judgments. Where such conversation is largely free and democratic, we might manage to approach justice; but where such conversation is stunted or captured by partisan interests, or worst, by an overbearing state, legal discourse suffers.
28. I have already alluded to, but cannot fully explore in this short speech, the myriad ways the Party-state can influence judicial reasoning. Such shift in meaning and interpretation does not occur overnight, and thus is all the harder to detect and resist. Each step built on the last, with plausible sounding legal justification, until step by innocuous step we end up in a completely unrecognisable place, where prisoners of conscience populate our prisons. Protestations that our judiciary is still “independent” is really quite beside the point; the Party simply has little need of old style, explicit direction of individual cases when political control already permeated every pores of society. Such overt interference is rather, a last resort and a sign of failure. When the “independent” court is “voluntarily” jailing dissenters and destroying civil society, why interfere?
29. What happened in Hong Kong is not an anomaly but a warning. The Party’s power to redefine words and subvert their meaning does not stop at the Chinese border. And while during the Cold War, where one can identify and counter a distinct communist ideology and phraseology, today’s China is instead speaking the same liberal language of rights, democracy and peace. Crucial differences of course still exist, but are camouflaged under a raft of comforting phrases. For those of us who live under the Party’s rule, we know of course these familiar terms carry very different meanings in Party-speak. Rights are not about what individuals can assert against the state, but about empowering the state to safeguard the “rights” of the people. Democracy is not about citizens holding leaders accountable through free association, expression and election, but about leaders “graciously” listening to the voice of the people through controlled channels. And peace is about ensuring submission to the Party’s order through whatever means, not the rejection of war nor hatred.
30. With China’s growing stature, its way of using and interpreting words is inexorably seeping into international discourse. Sometimes it is pure power play, as when it strongarmed other nations into echoing its proposals and positions. At other times it is a matter of practicality; if one wish to communicate with China, its way of understanding key concepts in that dialogue cannot just be laughed away. Recently the media has reported on voices from the US calling on US and Chinese leaders to come to some agreement on how to define “national security” – a seemingly sensible suggestion to accommodate differences, but see what happened when the Party redefined “national security” in Hong Kong. And what is next? Should they go on to seek agreement on how to define human rights, or even democracy? Ceding to the state the authority to define words is a treacherous path, but when China is playing that game, others may be sorely tempted to follow.
31. There is still another way whereby party-speak slips in, that is through the logic of our own values. When the Chinese government proposes stuff like “peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy and freedom” as “common values of human kind,” it is at once saying something very different from the liberal understanding, yet with a vocabulary and logic we cannot reasonably reject. Surely we do not deny that things like democracy and justice are important, shared values, right? So what does it matter if we call them “universal values” or “common rules of human kind”? But of course it does matter; the concerted effort to replace “universal values” with “common values” is part of the same attempt to take away the power of articulating values from ordinary people, and putting it into the hands of the state. While there is no single authority on what is meant by “universal values,” the “common values of humankind” is the Party’s property, and thus, can be easily moulded to the Party’s liking, same with many seemingly benign formulation of the Party. When one adopts them out of courtesy or indifference, the Party gains another foothold in its war on meaning.
32. As party-speak gets increasingly mixed into international principles and rules, the danger is that the meaning of these principles would itself become distorted and confused, losing any conceptual coherence and hence, the ability to set standard, guide conduct or communicate values. Just see how the so-called “One China Principle,” which attains almost universal agreement, can in fact mean almost anything depending on the speaker. Instead of signalling consensus, the dominance of such a “norm” only prevents the clear articulation of genuine differences, which in turn compromise efforts to resolve them. Or see how the principle of “One Country, Two Systems,” the basis on which the U.K. agreed to hand over Hong Kong, is said to be more “accurately implemented” even as it is being violated. The greatest threat to the current rules-based order has not in the express renunciation of existing rules, but in their appropriation and subversion. The body of that rules-based order may live, but its soul could be lost.
33. In highlighting how a rules-based order can fail us, I am of course not advocating that we give up on having rules altogether. Far from it. But I do say that we should drop the pretense that law is independent of politics, or that a lawyer can do his job just as well by turning a blind eye to the power dynamic in a society. Rather, how parties, witnesses, jurors and judges interact are all affected by it. The letters of the law are but a skeleton; it is power that fills in the gap and animates them, not to mention, writing them down in the first place. The law constrains power to certain extent but never determines its action; on the other hand, neither can power take form and act on the world without the law. In that sense all effective order – as opposed to disorder – must be rules-based, except perhaps the smallest unit where the will of the powerful can directly mediate everything. The key questions are thus not whether an order is rules-based, but what kind of rules it is based on, and what kind of power animates it. Is the law a skeleton for a human being or a shark? Is the resulting order a healthy one in harmony with itself, or a Frankenstein with wing for an arm and an atrophied leg? But perhaps the Frankenstein is in fact a kind-hearted creature, while the physically healthy man is a ruthless murderer.
34. If what we are after is a just order, we must also work on building a just distribution of power instead of just worshipping rules. Only when power is genuinely shared could laws be the shared expression of a community instead of the will of a few. Only when values hold greater power than force, could laws function as a rational system of principles instead of a litany of brute commands. And only when laws faithfully express a community’s values could they deem the members’ respect and allegiance, instead of evoking only fear and resentment.
35. The questions of who, and what, has power in a society are in fact, intertwined. Values can have power only when power is fairly equally distributed among a people. For values are values only when backed by conscientious commitment, else they are just window dressing for ulterior interests. Just see how communism has all but lied in “Communist China” despite its prominence in official discourse. Since the voice of conscience can only come from within, and cannot be delegated nor centralized, conscience has power only when individuals have power. Thus, law as values is possible only when individuals have a share in state power, when each touched by the law can judge it and mould it in turn, in accordance with his own conscientious understanding of the law’s values.
36. Law-as-values is not about rigid principles set in stone, but is itself a living conversation conducted on an egalitarian basis. As such it must allow for uncertainty and contradiction, and does not guarantee success or lasting agreement. That order has nevertheless emerged out of such cacophony is the great miracle of the liberal experiment, and a testimony to the existence of universal values among humanity, which alone can anchor such a dynamic and pluralistic order.
37. In contrast, when individuals are disempowered, dominated by the outsized power of the state machinery or factional interests, laws inevitably degenerate into expression of force. For law-as-force does not require giving space to conscience or debates. Indeed, the grooming of obedient, unquestioning “soldiers” is often the quicker way to amassing overwhelming power, which ensures the stability of the resulting “rules- based order.”
38. With the rise of authoritarianism, what is at risk is not the existence of a rules-based order, but the authority of values in that order. A values-based order does not necessarily follow from a rules-based order, a distinction often overlooked by those who have always lived under a liberal order. Nor is the battle between law-as-values and law-as-force settled once and for all once important values are enshrined in foundational legal documents. Rather, laws as genuine statements of values are a rare and fragile achievement made possible only through hard-won democratization of power and sustained through the constant effort and vigilance of people committed to those values. Or in other words, it depends on whether we can keep the conversation on values alive and inclusive – which is where Hong Kong has failed. What has disappeared there is not a rules-based order, nor an ostensibly liberal constitution, but the guiding power of liberal values in the day-to-day working of that order. It is a fate that may befall more shall we fail to defend our values, head-on. We must put values back at the centre of our laws and our politics instead of dismissing them as the quaint preoccupation of the idealists. Difficult and no doubt, contentious debates on the content and implication of universal values cannot be sidestepped in order to placate dictators, appease demagogues, or secure material gains. This way lies the confirmation of the power of force over values, and paves the path to their further erosion. In that sense defending the rights of people everywhere is far more than just about helping others, but is at the heart of the battle to define ourselves and the order we have built. Are we truly a community of principles, or are we just as cynical as the dictator next door? Are we sincere about building a world order based on values, or are we happy with whatever kind of order so long as we are on the winning side?
39. As far as inclusiveness is concerned, it is indisputable that the current international order is heavily dominated by the West, and thus still quite far from the ideal of law-as-values. But the way to improve it is not by giving more voice to the non-western dictators, which could only deepen the silence of the hitherto voiceless. Rather ordinary people must be empowered to join in the conversation on values through the building of democracy everywhere. Again, a difficult and not uncontroversial task, often decried as “interference” when such efforts and solidarity are extended across border. Yet if we are to abandon the quest for democracy, we shall have no hope of ever building a just international order based on values.
40. As lawyers, our trade is needed in any kind of rules-based order, good or bad, just or unjust. Yet the dignity of our profession cannot survive in just any kind of order. Instead, it is bounded up with the dignity of the law, with whether the law reflects our autonomy or denies it. In that sense the building of democratic institutions that alone can safeguard the law’s dignity is also a lawyer’s duty, which is why all three of us receiving this prize today are jailed for working for democracy in China, a fight that may seem unrelated to our profession but is in fact, central to it. It is a fight we cannot waver from, even when knowing that the laws we served would likely condemn us. For sometimes confronting the law-as-it-is is the only way to respect the law-as-it-should-be – and the highest service a lawyer can offer her fellow men.
____________________________________
#鄒幸彤 #許志永 #丁家喜 獲取 2023CCBE人權奬
#ChowHangTung, #XuZhiyong and #DingJiaxi receive the CCBE Human Rights Award 2023
CCBE - Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe 第2023屆的CCBE人權獎得主是「鄒幸彤、許志永、丁家喜」。此奬項是向三位律師長期以來致力於捍衛人權和法治的勇氣、決心、承諾及出色表現和犧牲，致上敬意。
#CCBE 主席 #PanagiotisPerakis 將在 2023 年 11 月 24 日(星期五)雅典的CCBE全體會議上頒發這個人權獎項。鄒幸彤、許志永、丁家喜在遭受司法騷擾的情況下，仍以非凡的勇氣和奉獻精神支持人權，是值得整個法律界的尊重和認可。
CCBE關注到，在中國倡議人權和法治的律師處境並沒有改善，甚至惡化；這個情況出現在全球其中一個最大的權力和經濟體，令人憂慮。#歐洲律師 將透過CCBE繼續密切關注事態發展，並為需要幫助的中國同事提供支援。 我們永遠不會接受律師因為其作為律師的合法活動而成為攻擊目標。
The CCBE decided to grant the CCBE Human Rights Award 2023 to Chinese Lawyers #HangTungChow, #XuZhiyong and #DingJiaxi for their courage, determination and commitment to defending human rights and the rule of law in China.
The CCBE President, Panagiotis Perakis, will present their awards during the CCBE Plenary Session on Friday 24 November 2023 in Athens. With this Award, the CCBE wishes to highlight the long-standing and outstanding commitment and sacrifice those three lawyers have demonstrated in upholding the fundamental values of the legal profession and in defending and advocating for human rights and the respect for the rule of law.
The CCBE is concerned that the situation of lawyers in China who advocate for human rights and the rule of law has still not improved, and has even worsened in some cases, which is even more worrying in a country considered to be one of the world’s largest power and economy. Through the CCBE, European lawyers will continue to closely monitor the situation and support their Chinese colleagues who need help. We will never accept that lawyers are targeted because of their legitimate activities as lawyers.
___________________
#CCBE人權奬 目的：突顯一位或多位在維護基本價值觀方面表現出傑出承諾和犧牲的律師或律師組織的工作。 該獎項授予透過維護人權領域專業和個人行為的最高價值觀為法律職業帶來榮譽的一名或多名律師或律師組織。
The purpose of the #CCBEHumanRightsAward: Highlighting the work of one or more lawyers or lawyers’ organisations which have demonstrated outstanding commitment and sacrifice in upholding fundamental values. The award is granted to one or more lawyers or to a lawyers’ organisation which have brought honour to the legal profession by upholding the highest values of professional and personal conduct in the field of human rights.
#FreeHangTung #FreeZhiyong #FreeJiaxi
消息來源：
#小彤群抽會
https://www.facebook.com/ChowHangTungClub
#CCBE -Council of bars and Law Societies of Europe
https://www.ccbe.eu