China's Grisham says rule of law vital

Renmin University professor and best-selling novelist says country should move toward phasing out the death penalty

He Jiahong, one of China's leading legal experts, believes it is important that nobody in any system should be above the law.

The professor of law at Renmin University of China believes his country has made major strides in legal reform over the past 30 years.

He says the aim now is to move to a system of rule of law "in line with socialist and Chinese characteristics" as was outlined at the fourth plenary session of the 18th National Congress of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in 2014. .

He Jiahong says rule by law is still rule by man but still using the law as a tool. Mai Tian / For China Daily

"The meeting said very clearly that we should establish rule of law. Rule of law is very different from ruling the country by law," he says.

"Rule by law is still rule by man but still using the law as a tool. Rule of law is that no-one should be above the law. Everybody should be equal in front of the law."

He, a spry 63-year-old who owes his fitness to playing badminton and competitive soccer until he was 50, was speaking at a book fair at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing.

He combines being a law academic with a career as a highly successful crime novelist and was launching new Chinese editions of his books, which feature his fictitious lawyer creation Hong Jun. Two of the novels Hanging Devils and Black Holes are published in English.

He, sometimes referred to as China's answer to John Grisham, says he is not as well known among English language readers compared to those of other languages because his publisher is Penguin Australia, which is restricted to publishing in Asia. His books are best-sellers, however, in France and they have also been translated into Italian and Spanish.

"They (Penguin Australia) can publish the books in Australia and Asia but not in the UK or the United States. I am trying to get contracts there too, however."

One of his current high profile roles is as director of the Center for Anti-Corruption and Rule of Law at Renmin University, which was set up last year.

He is also an expert adviser in this area to China's Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate, China's highest prosecution and investigation agency.

More than 100 officials above ministerial level have been probed for corruption in China since the current top leadership was elected at the end of 2012.

"The anti-corruption area is one where the rule of law has been applied to public officials in China and they have been very much subject to the law," he says.

"They can no longer bypass the law. They have to abide by the law and this is one area of legal reform that really has actually worked."

On one of the key legal issues - capital punishment - He is something of a convert.

He used to believe the country's stance on the death penalty should reflect public opinion. In a poll in 2002, 93 percent of the population supported it, although that is believed to have fallen to between 70 and 80 percent today.

"My position was that China should retain the death penalty because we have to respect public opinion," he says.

"I changed my mind after leading a group of people conducting a study on unlawful convictions for about 10 years. I noticed there were some loopholes in our criminal justice system and because it is just human nature, there were mistakes by judges, prosecutors and police officers. In the case of capital punishment, mistakes are always inevitably very serious ones because there is obviously no way to correct them."

He now believes China should gradually phase out the death penalty rather than move straight to abolition and says it is already moving in that direction.

"In the 1990s there were about 80 plus offenses that could be given the death penalty. With the amendment of the criminal law, this is down to 50 plus. We also have the death penalty with two-year suspension which is automatically reduced to life imprisonment. The death penalty could be applied in these cases but hasn't been since the founding of the People's Republic (in 1949)."

He was born in Beijing in 1953, the son of a military officer, who died when he was only 10 years old.

"I had a family background of intellectuals. My father had a college degree and my mother also had a very good education by the standard of the time. She was from a big landlord family."

During the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), He turned against his grandfather, who had been a general in the Kuomintang, the nationalist party led by Chiang Kai-shek, but was then reduced to being a street sweeper.

"I tried to cut a clear line between me and him at the time. I wanted to be a revolutionary and I thought my grandfather was anti-revolutionary.

"So for several years I refused to see him. But when the "cultural revolution" was over I realized he was a good man. He had a long life, passing away at 95 so I had the chance to reconcile with him," he says.

He went to work on a farm in Heilongjiang in Northeast China before returning to Beijing in the late 1970s to work for a construction company but with aspirations to become a famous writer. It was meeting his future wife, Ren Xinping (a medical doctor to whom he has been married 35 years) that changed his life.

"Her parents wouldn't accept a plumber in a construction company as a future son-in-law so that made me take my examinations to go to university," he says.

He failed to get on the economics course because his math scores were not high enough and ended up doing law.

"I picked up law almost randomly but the more I learned about it, the more I realized the importance of it."

He went on to do a doctorate at Northwestern University before pursing an academic career, which has been mostly at Renmin, although he regularly lectures around the world.

He finally published his first novel, Hanging Devils, in 1995 and has combined his academic work with a literary career, although he has written a number of law books.

Some critics have drawn a parallel with him and his literary character Hong Jun.

"His experience is very similar but I wouldn't say Hong Jun is me. I essentially created a model lawyer for promoting the rule of law in China."

One French newspaper has described his central character as the Chinese Sherlock Holmes.

"I actually like Sherlock Holmes and also Agatha Christie. I have also had some inspiration from modern writers like Scott Turow and, of course, I have been referred to as the John Grisham of China since we have this similar background in the field of law."

He would like to see more legal reform in China, including the actual trial in court becoming a bigger part of any criminal proceedings.

"For many years the center of legal proceedings has been the investigation. You have the investigative agency, which is usually the police department and in court you have the prosecutor who will instigate the prosecution and then the judge will give the conviction. So the trial in the court room is not a substantive part of proceedings," he says.

"I have spent the past 10 years trying to persuade China's leaders on that and I was very happy by their decision (at the fourth plenary session in 2014) to move to a more trial-centered approach. This is the way to promote judicial independence."

andrewmoody@chinadaily.com.cn

Bio

He Jiahong

professor of law, Renmin University of China

Age: 63

Bachelor of Law (1983) and Master of Law (1986), Renmin University of China.

Doctor of Juridicial Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, 1993

Career,

Professor of law, Renmin University of China since 1986

(Director, Institute of Evidence Law since 2006; director, Research Center for Wrongful Convictions since 2012; director, Center for Common Law since 2014; and director, Center for Anti-Corruption and Rule of Law, since June 2016).

Books, Hanging Devils: Hong Jun Investigates, The Black Hole of Human Life, The Misled Region of Human Life, The Vicious Circle of Human Life and The Narrow Road of Human Life.

Book, A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Film, Law Abiding Citizen (2009, dir. by F. Gary Gray)

Music, Love in Tibet, a Tibetan folk song.

Food, Braised pork in soya bean sauce. "I like this cooked by my wife."