The rule of law is something you either have, or you don’t. Relying on closed sessions, permitting the police to do almost anything they like to defendants, and basically lacking any of the critical checks and balances which would ensure something approaching “justice” means that you don’t.

So, sure, China – you can bully someone like Stern Hu into pleading guilty to bribery charges. But it doesn’t mean any of the rest of us will believe you’ve proven he did anything wrong – a system guaranteed to return a guilty verdict makes any guilty verdict suspect.

And a system in which the guilty can escape no matter what they’ve done, provided their connections are good enough, just encourages the sort of corruption the rhetoric claims that you oppose. The distinction between the person in prison and the person near the top isn’t that the former abused his position and the latter didn’t; it’s that the person at the bottom fell out of favour. Their punishment isn’t a discouragement to others to offend: others know perfectly well that being innocent is no protection at all.

You either treat all defendents fairly, and equally, or the process of “law” is completely meaningless.

Frankly, I’m not sure why oppressive states even bother with the pretense of having courts.