The Australian Attorney-General is attempting to overturn a judgment against a former Chinese minister in a case of torture.
A default judgment was made against former Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai in November last year after papers were served during an official trip to Australia for APEC.
The plaintiff, Mr Pan Yu, an Australian citizen, was tortured with 40,000-volt electric batons in Liaoning Province at the time when Bo Xilai was personally overseeing the detention, torture and forced brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners in that region.
Bo Xilai has since been relieved of his position as a minister, but it is understood that the Chinese Embassy has been pursuing the Australian Government to intervene in this and other cases against Chinese officials.
The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, is now seeking to overturn the default judgment brought against Bo Xilai on the grounds that it does not comply with the Foreign States Immunity Act.
A spokesperson for Falun Gong in Australia, Kay Rubacek, said there were hundreds of confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning Province as a result of Bo Xilai's directives as Governor and Deputy Secretary of the region.
"It will be a great shame if the judgment is set aside," she said.
In what must have been one of his last acts as Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer signed a certificate in late November last year to intervene in another case of torture, this time against Chinese Communist Party member Chen Shaoji.
Mr Chen, a former Communist Party secretary in Guangdong Province, once directed the 610 Office – a secret police force set up to implement the persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners in China. He is being sued for torture, assault and the unlawful detention of two Chinese women, both Falun Gong practitioners, who now live in Australia.
The current Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, has maintained Mr Downer's intervention and has signed certificates pursuant to the Foreign States Immunity Act 1985 in an attempt to shield both Bo Xilai and Chen Shaoji.
The Attorney-General is now seeking to overturn the default judgment brought against Bo Xilai and continue the intervention of the previous Howard government in the Chen Shaoji case and one other, a case against former leader Jiang Zemin.
Jiang Zemin, considered responsible for initiating the extermination campaign that has been perpetrated against Chinese practitioners of Falun Gong since 1999, is being sued for torture by Chinese born artist Zhang Cuiying.
Ms Zhang, an Australian citizen, spent eight months in detention in China where she was stripped naked, beaten and locked up with male prisoners as punishment for appealing to Beijing authorities to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. It was only through the help of the Australian Government that she was finally released in 2000 and returned to Australia.
Kay Rubacek said legal proceedings against Chinese officials for crimes against humanity had to be brought outside China because the Communist regime would not allow proceedings within China.
The default judgments, she said, send a strong message to the perpetrators in China "that they will be held accountable for their crimes, if not now, then in the future".
The NSW Supreme Court will hold hearings on the viability of the Attorney-General's intervention in the three separate cases over the coming weeks.
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