08.20.2007

ABA Commission on Domestic Violence Director Robin Runge exchanges views with China’s Supreme People’s Court Vice President Wan Exiang on the role of the bar in working with judges and courts to promote reform addressing gender bias in the law during a meeting at the Court on July 24, 2007, in Beijing.

In July 2007, Robin Runge, Director of the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence, traveled to China to participate in Rule of Law Initiative programs to share lessons learned and advise Chinese courts and advocates on improving judicial and community responses to domestic violence. 

The People’s Republic of China Supreme People’s Court (SPC), as part of a larger effort to reexamine the role of gender in adjudicating rights and settling disputes under law, is examining the need to issue judicial guidance to lower court judges in the handling of divorce and custody cases that involve domestic violence.  During the ABA delegation’s visit to the Supreme People’s Court on July 24, Ms. Runge exchanged views with SPC Vice President Wan Exiang on the role of the bar in working with judges and courts to promote reform to address gender bias in the courts, and to arrange court proceedings so that victims are kept safe from their batterers and can exercise their legal rights. 

A July 29–30 Symposium on Gender Perspectives on Marriage and Family Cases, supported by ABA, shared best practices and explored the rationales for rules governing the use of mediation, and the assessment of evidence, in cases involving domestic violence.  The SPC’s expected guidance on these issues is aimed at addressing abuses of power or other inappropriate pressure applied by lower courts in the widespread promotion of mediation without protections for domestic violence survivors, and in the current failure to acknowledge relevant evidence of domestic violence in cases of custody or division of marital property.

Ms. Runge also shared lessons learned with other legal advocates in a separate workshop on July 26–27 to improve local pilot projects around China to provide a coordinated community response to survivors of domestic violence.  Organizers of these pilot projects, being implemented in seven communities around China, were convened by the Rule of Law Initiative and China’s Network for Combating Domestic Violence to share experience in the pilot communities and the United States.  Participants then discussed ways to improve the projects by incorporating needs assessments from the perspective of victims in designing coordinated service strategies, by considering different models of service delivery, and brainstorming ways to access and develop Network resources to meet these needs, including the training of trainers in the pilot communities.  This meeting of the far-flung pilot projects marks a turning point in which the organizers have become connected to a broader network and have developed plans to take their projects to the next level in impact and effectiveness.

For more information, please contact Hyeon-Ju Rho at rhoh@staff.abanet.org.