INTRODUCTION

The Party policy of ruling according to law has finally begun to have an impact on administrative detention. Despite some minor reforms, the police detention powers examined in this book have become increasingly inconsistent with the standards of the evolving administrative legal regime, both in terms of the legal basis of the powers and of the regulation of their scope and procedure. As I discussed in chapter 8, mechanisms for supervision of police detention have failed to curb abuses. With official acceptance that the law must not only protect administrative efficiency and empower the police but also protect the rights of citizens, the ongoing systemic abuse of these powers by local police is becoming socially and politically unjustifiable. There is a recognition that these powers, if they are to be retained, must be reformed to make them more compatible with the developing legal framework and that there is a need to create a rational structure for the coercive powers of state. Where a decision is made not to reform, or where a power cannot be reformed, the conditions are now conducive for their abolition.

Legal reform of administrative detention powers has begun, usually taking the form of incremental changes to regulation of the power and to the principles for exercise of that power. Occasionally, reform takes a form that is dramatic and thoroughgoing. An example of such radical reform occurred in 2003.