Oops. Correction to Feb. 17th post about disappearance of Bao Fan

On Feb. 17, I wrote that there was no plausible legislative basis for the detention of Bao Fan without notice to anyone. I have to take that back.

Article 22 of the Law on Supervision gives Supervisory Commissions the authority to detain (留置) "涉嫌行贿犯罪或者共同职务犯罪的涉案人员", which I translate as "persons suspected of the crime of giving bribes or involved in cases of joint duty-related crimes." This could plausibly cover Bao, particularly with the "involved in" language. Detention under this sentence does not require that the detainee be a public employee.

I did a little research on official interpretations of "involved in," and found a document from the National Supervisory Commission itself that explains what kind of people are deemed to be "involved in" a case. The definition covers everyone who participates in some improper way in the offense being investigated, but also (according to the document) covers "victims, witnesses, etc." It does not explore the latter terms, though: in a more detailed list of what kinds of people are considered "involved in" a case, it says nothing about victims and witnesses. It would certainly be a far-reaching and alarming interpretation of the Law on Supervision to read it as authorizing coercive detention of people simply because they were victims of or witnesses to an offense under investigation. But of course that does not mean that that interpretation does not fully reflect the intention of the legislation. It wasn't drafted by the ACLU. In any case, my conclusion needs to be modified: Bao's detention might be statutorily grounded in the Law on Supervision. The failure to notify, however, is still (while lawful) hard to explain.