Rule of law means unjust ‘luck’ will run out

The trial of Sun Xiaoguo by the High People’s Court of Yunnan province, which began on Monday, has grabbed the public’s attention.

Sun was originally sentenced to death in February 1998 when he was found guilty of multiple rapes and intentionally inflicting injury upon others.

However, the same court changed the sentence to a death sentence with reprieve in a retrial six months later.

The court then changed his sentence to 20 years imprisonment after another retrial in 2007.

And Sun’s “luck” did not stop there. He was miraculously released three years later in 2010, after serving 12 years and five months in prison, apparently because of a policy that reduces sentences due to “important technical innovations” (Sun reportedly patented an anti-theft manhole cover.) He then returned to his old career under a new name.

Now after being caught in the net of a central authority inspection team, he is once again in court. This time for organizing and leading a mafia-style organization. However, he is also being retried for his original crimes.

Although it seems that the truth has come much nearer to daylight, it should not be forgotten that had the central authority inspection team not been dispatched to Yunnan in April, Sun’s “luck” means he would probably be at large now.

In an indication of just how “lucky” he has been, 19 civil servants have also been either indicted or are due to be indicted for duty-related crimes stemming from Sun’s arrest.

That the defendants come from courts, procuratorates, public security departments and prisons at various levels, as well as companies related to Sun, speaks volumes about the resistance the central inspection team encountered in the process of bringing Sun’s crimes into the light.

Given that, that no senior civil servants or judicial staff appear among them has sparked much speculation, as many previous similar cases suggest that it usually takes officials of much higher levels, who have the necessary resources and power, to turn a death sentence criminal into a free man in such a short period of time. Therefore, it will come as no surprise if some bigger fish are hooked as the investigation deepens.

But even if all it takes to bend the law is simply those at the lower levels on the list, the implications are ugly.

They point to systemic corruption in the province’s judicial department, which makes people uneasy since it concerns not only those who were victims of Sun’s crimes.

It is to be hoped that the trials of Sun for crimes old and new will restore people’s confidence in the judicial system by demonstrating the country is now under the rule of law.