Documents have finally been served on former leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Jiang Zemin, after three years of legal wrangling in the NSW Supreme Court.
Chinese-born Australian artist Zhang Cuiying is suing the former CCP leader for wrongful detention and torture that occurred following her appeal to authorities in Beijing to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Ms Zhang said she was pleased the documents had finally been forwarded to the defendants in China.
"This is a very good step forward," she told The Epoch Times, but added that it was only the beginning regarding the legal proceedings. "There is still much to be done before the defendants are brought to justice."
Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution of followers of the peaceful spiritual practice in 1999, setting up a special unit of police known as the 6-10 office to round up Falun Gong practitioners and administer his directives.
Ms Zhang spent eight months in the No.1 Shangmeilin Detention Centre in Shenzhen City, China, where she was stripped naked, beaten and locked up with male prisoners. It was only through the help of the Australian Government that she was finally released, in 2000, and returned to Australia.
The tiny, but determined, artist commenced her civil action against Jiang Zemin in the NSW Supreme Court in 2004, but after Jiang failed to accept the subpoena twice and failed to respond once, the Court required the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to deliver the documents to its Chinese counterparts.
The documents, however, were not delivered by DFAT in the required time, raising suspicion that the Chinese Embassy in Canberra was putting pressure on the Australian Government to diffuse the case.
Former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin confirmed as much when he said that he had known that DFAT had reassured the Chinese Embassy that it would do everything to ensure the case did not affect bilateral relationships.
"After a heated discussion with the Chinese Embassy in Australia, DFAT offered legal consultation on how to halt the case," Mr Chen told The Epoch Times.
Ms Zhang was forced to appeal to the courts in March this year for extended time. This was granted and notice was received earlier this month that documents had been delivered by DFAT to the Chinese attaché in Canberra.
"It is very good that DFAT forwarded the documents in spite of the pressure from the Chinese Embassy. I feel they have done a right thing," she said.
Ms Zhang's lawyer, Adam Slattery, said he was happy that this part of the process had finally been achieved.
"They [the documents] have now been served," he said. "That is good. It is within the sixth-month period. Now we just need to wait for what kind of reply we get."
Mr Slattery said if there was no reply then they would seek a default judgement.
"That's where some of the real difficulties for the case will come out because that is when it is actually being heard on some of the issues of law."
There are a number of contestable areas, Mr Slattery explained. The first is that, although there is general agreement under the Foreign States Immunity Act that nations will not sue each others' heads of state, Jiang Zemin is a former head of state so it is not clear whether immunity still applies.
There are also questions of whether the former president was acting outside the "official apparatus or organs of the state" or whether he was acting within those boundaries, but "contrary to international covenants of civil and political rights". Whether immunity should then apply would be another question for the courts.
Then there is the nature of the allegations.
"The question is, should acts of genocide, and it is a genocide," be exempt from immunity, Mr Slattery said adding, by way of example: "If someone said Hitler could not be sued for genocide because of the Foreign States Immunity Act, most people would go: 'What!'"
"We have a case that overlaps" a number of issues, Mr Slattery said, and at the end of the day "a person is being wrongfully arrested…and tortured for peaceful protest."
Ms Zhang said she has written letters to many Australian State and Federal Members of Parliament and had received over 70 replies, including from the Prime Minister and several ministers.
"Some are supportive of my legal action and expressed their best wishes," she said.
While she had filed the lawsuit to obtain justice for herself, Ms Zhang said she was also doing it "for the tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have suffered extremely brutal persecution, but do not have any legal channel to get any justice under the Communist dictatorship".
"I believe that those who have committed crimes of torture and crimes against humanity, no matter who they are, must be brought to justice," Ms Zhang said.
Feeds