The ‘Special Grouping’ of the Human Rights of Women, Children, Handicapped and Elderly

Abstract

Chinese jurisprudence constitutes a discourse on what is justice, and the transition to the ‘socialist market’ has posed an essential question of social justice in law. How will the law, as a predicate facilitating new market relationships, respond to the ‘rights and interests’ of the most vulnerable sectors of society in a policy context which synthesizes justice with efficiency? The 1990s sequence of legislated human rights and its supporting jurisprudence formally established the ‘special grouping’ (teshu qunti), of the rights and interests of women, children, the handicapped and elderly. This chapter describes and analyses the contents of this particular grouping. The latter is placed within the jurist consideration of changes in society and the related weighting of justice and efficiency in the new marketplace.