The People's Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party of China (CPC), ran a commentary Saturday rejecting criticisms of the country's judicial reforms.

In its annual World Report published last week, the New York-based organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) claimed that China's "police dominate the criminal justice system, which relies disproportionately on defendants' confessions."

The People's Daily article, under the byline of Shen Hui, said the HRW's description of the country's judicial reforms is "particularly biased and untrue."

"It is known that China's criminal justice system is not dominated by police organs, but consists of investigation organs led by the police organs, people's procuratorates and people's courts," said the article.

Concrete measures have also been introduced to stem the source of forced confessions under torture, the article said.

The World Report "gave no word on the great progress in terms of China's judicial reforms that have been demonstrated in the Criminal Procedural Law draft amendment," the article said.

Legal experts say the draft amendment will help improve the protection of criminal suspects' human rights, by preventing judges from accepting confessions from tortured suspects and giving these suspects more defense options.

Xinhua