Editor’s note: the author of this translated blog post is He Weifang, a professor at Peking University and an outspoken activist striving to reform the Chinese judicial system. In the article below, Chinese media company Sina asks He a number of questions related to the Bo Xilai trial and the implications it will have – if any – on the future of China’s legal system. He argues that there were two main flaws with the trial, namely the fact that the wrong-doings during the Chongqing anti-crime campaign were not dealt with during the trial and that the financial crimes involving Neil Heywood and the Bo family were not investigated. 

After five days in the courts, the long awaited trial of Bo Xilai has come to end. It is believed that the verdict will be announced within two weeks. This has been the biggest judicial event in China since the trial of Lin Biao and the Gang of Four in 1980. Over the past couple of days, I’ve been closely following the Jinan People’s Intermediate Court’s Weibo posts and monitoring whether the legal process was properly adhered to. Sina Weibo invited me to answer some questions related to the trial; below are the questions and answers. 

Question 1:

During a time when Chongqing was battling crime and its legal system was reduced to a personal tool [for furthering self-interest] you wrote an open letter to the legal community in Chongqing. Today, the man behind that very battle against crime is facing a judicial trial.  Do you think that justice has been served?

Answer:
 In the many years that were spent on the so-called “anti-crime campaign” (打黑除恶), Chongqing authorities did indeed disregard the rule of law on a number of occasions such as by stripping private businesses of their personal assets or committing wide-scale torture. According to local media reports at the time, Bo Xilai was the leading man of this campaign. Or in other words, he was the main person responsible for all the miscarriages of justice in Chongqing at the time. If this current trial also included the main players in Chongqing who abused power and obstructed public affairs – and not just those who tried to conceal the murder committed by Gu Kailai – then this case would be a lot more meaningful. You could even say that it would have opened a door to Chongqing’s other grievance cases.

During the debating stage of his hearing, Bo Xilai defended himself saying, “I hope the prosecutors will not think of this defence as a malicious effort to retract my testimony. Chinese law, which tries to prevent miscarriages of justice, created a three-party system to keep itself in check – this is to prevent miscarriages of justice. If you just listen to the prosecution’s side, a considerable number of miscarriages of justices will occur.” It’s ironic that when Bo Xilai found himself sitting in the seat of the accused, he suddenly spoke about the principles of the law with such clarity and logic.

Question 2:

Looking at the trial of Bo Xilai over the past few days, it seems that the legal procedures were strictly adhered to. Do you think this is an indication of progress? Or do you think there are still some inadequacies?

Answer:
What pleased people was the fact that the Jinan People’s Intermediate Court didn’t “beat people at their own game”; that is to say the court showed the utmost neutrality. From the court’s account of the trial via their official Sina Weibo posts, the prosecution and defence were both very professional. In particular, the rights of the defendant to mount a self-defence was upheld to a considerable degree. Despite the fact that the public and media were restricted in their freedom to listen in on the trial, what surprised people most was the fact that the court broadcast the basic aspects of the trial via Weibo. Looking at the ratio of words and time, some parts were omitted. However, by and large the majority of things said during the trial were broadcast.  This is an unprecedented change compared to similar cases in the past. Of course the publicizing of the trial wasn’t the Jinan court’s own decision. The power to make that decision came from elsewhere and the reasons behind it cannot be determined at this time.

Having not been in the court personally and solely looking at the information posted on Weibo by the court, the trial still had a number of flaws. As we already mentioned before, the scope of the criminal activity brought up by the Jinan Procuratorate was constrained. The scope of the indictment and trial was not delineated from the strictest legal standards. That’s the first flaw.

Secondly, precisely because prosecutors and judges didn’t prosecute and try according to the strictest legal guidelines, judges and prosecutors failed to get to the bottom of plots and questions that emerged during the cross-examination and debating stage. The most obvious example of this was during the second day when the lawyer said, “Wang Lijun’s testimony gives people the impression that Kailai created case 11.15 because of the Nice house and threats from Neil. The reality is, Neil sent Guagua an email demanding 14 million pounds – a fee not connected to the Nice house.” This is a very important lead that most likely relates to other financial crimes committed by the Bo family (how else could a fee surmount to such a huge sum!). It’s even likely that the lead is related to Gu Kailai’s real motive for murdering Neil Heywood. This lead should have been thoroughly investigated. It’s a pity that the Procuratorate let this go.

What’s more, during the final debate Bo Xilai said that he hit Wang Lijun because of improper relations between Wang and Gu Kailai. Clearly the court needs to reveal the exact nature of their relationship; if there was an improper relationship how long was it going on for and what kind of arrangement did they have? This is probably also related to Gu Kailai’s murder of Neil Heywood. The court did not follow up on this.

Thirdly, during the trial Wang Lijun and several other witnesses personally testified at the court and were even questioned by the defendant and lawyers. In contrast to the trial of Gu Kailai in Hefei and Wang Lijun’s trial in Chengdu, this was a major highlight at the Jinan trial. However, there too were some flaws. For example, the majority of witness that should have appeared in court didn’t and all witnesses that did appear were brought in by the prosecution. The defence did not have one single witness in the court, nor did they have any written documentary evidence in favour of the accused.  We therefore have reason to ask: Before the trial did the lawyers collect widespread evidence? Furthermore, during the trial Bo Xilai clearly said that he appealed to invite Gu Kailai as a witness twice, a request that was rejected by the judge on the grounds of article 188 which states that relatives cannot be used as witnesses in court. Only a live-recording of Gu Kailai could be used.  However, this article that supposedly protects the legal interest has ethical worth to the relatives. Since Gu agreed to testify via video recording, her appearance in the court room would have just meant a technical difference. The consequence of her not appearing in court means that many issues related to whether the accused committed a crime or not, could not be confronted.

Fourthly, in light of the complexity of this case, the trial was far too short.

Question 3:  

As a famous legal scholar in China, do you think that Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun standing trail spells the end of the Chinese legal system’s dark history?

Answer:
Last year’s Chongqing case has already become a huge event as far as the direction of China’s rule of law is concerned. Although this trial side stepped the miscarriages of justice caused during the “anti-crime campaign” in Chongqing, at least Bo sat in the defendant’s seat.
His calls for a fair procedure have a greater impact and persuasiveness than most other people’s. 

Question 4:

Do you think the end of Bo Xilai’s Chongqing-model (anti-crime & advocating old communist values) will have any major significance towards the future of China’s rule of law? Or is this just another case that won’t lead to serious and far-reaching improvements in China’s legal system?

Answer:
All I can say is that this trial can be used as a specimen to see whether the “political course, principles and policies” related to the Chongqing model will result in serious reflection and in-depth investigation into the roots of the legal system’s problems and even its political course.

Source: ifeng.com

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Keywords: He Weifang China’s legal system Bo Xilai trial