Group: secret rules hurt legal system

A human rights group said Monday that China's efforts to identify and protect state secrets undermines its international commitments and hurt its legal system. Although the constitution technically allows for freedom of expression and the right to criticize the government, authorities often invoke rules on state secrets to violate those freedoms, claimed Human Rights in China in a report. AP quoted the group as saying that the "international contradiction and tensions in domestic law provisions and the failure to consistently implement international norms, also undermine the development of a functioning and coherent rule of law." The 1988 law on protection of state secrets contains a catch-all clause that defines state secrets as, among other things, "all other matters classified as state secrets by the national State Secrets Bureau."