"Communist Party officials deemed to have misbehaved badly are dealt with not by the Chinese judicial system (itself hardly a model of due process) but by a parallel system that doles out the party’s own brand of justice. Such officials are whisked away by its discipline-enforcers and held incommunicado at centres such as the one in Huaibei. There they can be interrogated for months while the party decides whether to hand them over to the police, punish them itself or in rare cases set them free. This form of detention is described by many Chinese lawyers as unconstitutional, but the party sees it as vital to preserving its power."
The Economist
The Economist
