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Li Jihua, member of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Kunming Municipal Justice Bureau, as well as Secretary of the Party Committee of the Kunming Lawyers’ Industry, along with his delegation, visited Zhongji Law Firm to supervise and inspect its Party-building work and carry out pre-holiday visits and condolences.
On the morning of January 20, 2021, Li Jihua, a member of the Party Committee and Deputy Director of the Kunming Municipal Justice Bureau, as well as the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Kunming Lawyers’ Industry, accompanied by Li Yingbo from the Office of the Party Committee of the Kunming Lawyers’ Industry, visited Zhongji Law Firm to supervise and inspect its Party-building work and extend greetings and condolences to two veteran Party members of Zhongji Law Firm—Comrades Wang Daren and Lan Jin.
Secretary Li Jihua and Comrade Li Yingbo, representing the Municipal Industry Party Committee, conducted pre-holiday visits and extended greetings. They visited Mr. Wang Daren at his home to check on the well-being of this veteran party member from the firm. They asked in detail about the living conditions and health status of both Mr. Wang Daren and Mr. Lan Jin, who has limited mobility. They expressed their hope for the good health of these veteran party members and wished them a happy life and a peaceful retirement.
Secretary Li Jihua and Comrade Li Yingbo attended the democratic evaluation meeting of Party members held by the Party branch of Yunnan Zhongji Law Firm. They listened to the work report delivered by Comrade Wang Jinfan, the secretary of the Party branch, and provided comments on the Party building work carried out by Secretary Wang Jinfan in 2020. They also put forward requirements for the Party branch of Zhongji regarding its Party building efforts in 2021.
Since 2020, under the leadership of the Party Committee at the higher level, the Party branch of Yunnan Zhongji Law Firm has consistently adhered to Xi Jinping’s Thought on the Rule of Law as its guiding principle, thoroughly studied and implemented the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China as well as the Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 19th Central Committee. The firm has steadily promoted the institutionalization and normalization of the “Two Studies, One Action” initiative, strengthened its ideological and theoretical training in the Party’s innovative theories, enhanced its capacity to perform its duties effectively, and driven forward the overall development of the law firm’s various undertakings. The firm has also earnestly carried out thematic education activities focused on “preventing risks, practicing integrity and self-discipline, and standardizing professional conduct,” and has made concerted efforts to promote the standardized construction of the Party branch, resulting in a positive and promising development trajectory across all areas of work.
Secretary Li Jihua urged that law firms should seize the opportunity presented by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in 2021 to deepen their study of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, arm themselves with Xi Jinping’s thought on the rule of law, and use it to guide practice and advance work. They must uphold Party building as the guiding principle, firmly establish the concept of planning and developing both Party affairs and firm operations together, and promote mutual reinforcement and integration between the two. It is essential to deeply understand the Party’s role in focusing on the central tasks, building a strong team, and serving the masses, and to make concerted efforts to promote the integrated and deepened advancement of Party building and business operations within law firms. At the same time, the “Three Cultivation” system must be strictly implemented, actively recruiting outstanding lawyers into the ranks of Party members and strengthening the Party member contingent. We should comprehensively advance the construction of the “Strengthening Foundations,” “Leading the Way,” “Gathering Strength,” and “Pioneering” initiatives, making the Party building work in law firms a benchmark and model for the entire industry.
The year 2021 will mark the centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Over the past century, our Party has weathered countless storms and undergone profound transformations. At this special historical juncture, in celebration of the Party’s 100th birthday, “Yunnan Liu Hule Law Firm” has rebranded itself as “Yunnan Zhongji Law Firm” and relocated to a new office building. The firm’s former name and original location will now become history. The newly renamed Zhongji Law Firm will carry forward the spirit of bringing together talented individuals from all walks of life and serving the world at large, setting out once again with renewed vigor and determination. The Zhongji Party branch will also take this supervisory inspection as an opportunity to uphold political leadership, deeply study Xi Jinping’s Thought on the Rule of Law, grasp the requirements of the new development stage, implement the new development philosophy, and build a new development pattern. We will resolutely carry out the deployment and requirements of higher-level Party organizations, firmly uphold our ideals and convictions, deepen the integration of Party building with business operations, and promote Party building to better serve our business endeavors. On this great journey of the new era, we will forge ahead bravely and deliver outstanding achievements as a gift to the Party’s 100th anniversary.
It’s been a little over two months since the arson incident at the bustling textile factory. The real reason I’m writing this article only now is due to a small, personal circumstance. Two months ago, Xiao Tian from the School of Law at Beijing University of Science and Technology came to our team for a summer internship. At the time, just to gauge Xiao Tian’s legal expertise, I asked her to write an article for me to take a look at. As it happened, the textile-factory arson case had occurred not long before, so I suggested that Xiao Tian write an article on that very topic. She did, and when I read it, I thought her writing was quite good—though it differed somewhat from my own perspective. I think I even said something along the lines of, “I’ll revise the article a bit and then publish it on the ‘Haibo Criminal Defense’ WeChat public account.” But somehow, I never got around to doing that. Now that Xiao Tian’s two-month summer internship is almost over, I suddenly remembered this project—and decided to finally see it through. That’s how this article came to be.
In the past couple of days, two incidents have been circulating with considerable buzz within legal circles: One is an incomplete copy of a judgment issued by the People’s Court of a certain county in southwestern China, involving a construction contract dispute; the other is a series of short videos documenting the trial of the late Frank Caprio, former judge of the Providence Municipal Court in Rhode Island, USA, along with memoirs paying tribute to Judge Frank. In the judgment on the construction contract dispute issued by the People’s Court of that county in southwestern China, the court employed straightforward, unadorned political logic and factual rationality to evaluate and reject the defendant’s defense based on the statute of limitations—though such a defense might otherwise have been legally valid. In the short videos of Judge Frank’s trials that have been widely shared, most episodes feature Judge Frank engaging in witty and insightful conversations with the defendants about their lives, ultimately dismissing the charges against them. If there’s any common thread between these two cases, it’s precisely how both approached the interplay between natural justice, human sentiment, objective facts, and legal provisions—and how they arrived at judgments that were accepted by the parties involved and widely endorsed by the public.
To deeply implement the socialist rule-of-law philosophy and help build a cadre team that is loyal, clean, and responsible, recently, Lawyer Hai-bo Shui from Yunnan Zhongji Law Firm was invited by China Shipbuilding Industry Materials Yun-Gui Co., Ltd. to deliver a special rule-of-law lecture on the theme of “Preventing Illegal and Criminal Activities.”