In most countries of the world, lawyers have a direct say in matters relating to their profession, electing leaders to run a bar association.

That’s not true in China, though, where the Beijing Bar Association, like most professional guilds, is a Leninist-style top-down group run by the Communist Party, with its own interests paramount.

That is now coming under challenge. Some lawyers are seeking to bring open elections to the Beijing Bar Association, and the battle is getting downright nasty.

Last August, a group of 35 or so lawyers appealed on the internet for direct elections for the state-controlled association to make it more professional, independent and responsive to its members.

Almost immediately, the Beijing Bar Association lashed out, saying the appeal was “illegal” and a “total repudiation of China’s current lawyers administrative system, judicial system, and even political system.”

They also suggested that any effort to campaign for such a change might bring retaliation and criminal prosecution.

“Any individual who uses text messages, the web or other media to privately promote and disseminate the concept of direct elections, express controversial opinions, thereby spreading rumors within the Beijing Bar Association, confuse and poison people's minds, and convince people of circumstances that do not exist regarding the so-called ‘Call For Direct Elections For the Beijing Bar Association’ is illegal,” according to this English-language translation.

More recently, the government has taken taken punitive action, leaning on law firms to fire the lawyers who signed the appeal.

“Prominent rights defense lawyers Cheng Hai and Li Subin were asked to leave their positions at the Beijing Yitong Law Firm on Oct. 30,” a statement from Human Rights In China, a New York-based group, said a few hours ago. “Earlier, five other lawyers at the same firm were dismissed or left voluntarily.”

“According to Li, six or seven officials from the Haidian District Bureau of Justice went to the firm on October 30 to take photographs and questioned the staff about cases that the firm has taken on. Cheng and Li said that the director of their firm, which has accepted and represented many rights defense cases over the years, has expressed concern and feels strong pressure for the first time from the authorities to rid the firm of some of the rights defense cases as well as staff lawyers who support the direct election of the Lawyers Association officials.”

The government doesn’t seem to be quelling the push for direct elections. According to the New York group, 85 lawyers have now joined the appeal.

“Many signers or heads of their law firms have been summoned by their district bureaus of justice to report on the motivation of the group and on any "hostile external forces" that backed the appeal. Heads of firms were told that if their lawyers failed to withdraw their signatures, their firms would face problem with their annual licensing inspection,” the group said.

According to postings in September on the informative China Law Prof Blog, the 15,000 local lawyers in Beijing might have reason to be unhappy with the local bar association, which hits each one up for the equivalent of nearly $400 in fees per year but doesn’t provide a lot of useful services in return.

So the issues go beyond rule of law and local democracy to general pocketbook matters.